Institutions in which
Ernest Rutherford played a role
Royal Society
Full name : The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge
Motto : Nullius in verba ("take no one's word")
Foundation : November 28, 1660
Headquarters : From 1873 to 1967, it was located at Burlington House on Piccadilly .
Website : https://royalsociety.org/
Burlington House on Piccadilly in 1873.
Source: Wikipedia
Burlington House on Piccadilly in Victorian London
Source: SWNS Digital
Burlington House, inner courtyard (currently the headquarters of the Royal Society of Chemistry)
Source: Wikipedia
Becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society (or FRS) is a consecration for a British scientist.
For this, he must be presented by personalities who are already part of it and who must justify the reason why the candidacy he proposes deserves to be accepted.
Ernest Rutherford, then installed in Montreal, expressed the wish to be elected there in 1901; but JJ Thomson did not present his case: he already had another candidate up his sleeve.
In 1902, JJ finally transmitted an official request.
But the young New Zealander was not admitted to the noble assembly.
In 1903, new attempt, again supported by JJ. This time, the request was accepted. On June 11, 1903, Ernest Rutherford became FRS
Ernest is the last to have signed the column "1903".
Two lines above appears the name of his friend John Sealy Townsend (who was the second foreign student hosted in Cambridge in 1895, see on JJ Thomson's page ).
In the same line as Rutherford, in the column "1902", appears the signature of the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler , at whose house Ernest will enjoy a very special dinner a few years later (see on the Stockholm page ).
To be continued...
Meeting room of the Royal society at Burlington house in 1906
Source: Wikipedia
Image Jean-Paul Jandrain /Pixabay
British Association
Full name : British Association for the Advancement of Science, commonly abbreviated to BA - In 2009 the name was changed to British Science Association, abbreviated as BSA
Motto : Sed omnia disposuisti (inspired by "sed omnia in mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti", or "everything in measures, numbers and weights is ordered")
Founded : September 27, 1831
Headquarters : Burlington House on Piccadilly, London (during the time of Ernest Rutherford); Queen's Gate, Kensigton, at present time.
Website : https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/​
The principles and organization of the British Association were quite different from those of the Royal Society: its aim was to maintain a thorough knowledge of the state of science, its main means of communication (and of maintaining links between colleagues) was an annual colloquium, held in a town in the British Empire (sometimes beyond the oceans) and admission was free: no election, like at the Royal Society or at the Lit & Phil, just the need to be invited.
Ernest's first contact with the BA took place in September 1896 in Liverpool (see that city page for details of the colloquium held that year).
Another difference between BA and RS was that the president of the former is only in office for a period of 12 months, not five years.
It was for example JJ Thomson who assumed this function in 1909 in Winnipeg, Arthur Schuster in 1915 in Manchester. And it will be Rutherford's turn in 1923 at Liverpool.
Lit&Phil
Full name : The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
Motto : Knowledge is power (this was also the leitmotif that Martha Rutherford, Ernest's mother, repeated to her flock of children when she made them do their homework. The words "Knowledge" and "Power" are engraved on the pillars of the portico of the Macdonald Physics building in Montreal. This motto must undoubtedly be a universal principle...)
Foundation : February 28, 1781 (second oldest learned society in Great Britain after the Royal Society).
Headquarters : 36 George Street during the Rutherford era (building destroyed in 1940, rebuilt in 1960, used until 1980, then abandoned in favor of Church House, located at 90 Deansgate) .
Website : https://www.manlitphil.ac.uk/
As the name suggests, the Lit & Phil is not a learned society focused solely on science. On his website we find this presentation:
"The Society is established for the object of promoting the advancement of education and the widening of public interest in and appreciation of any form of literature, science, the arts and public affairs."
Pictures:
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The Lit & Phil headquarters at 36 George Street prior to its destruction in a bombing raid in December 1940. Source: Rediscovery of the Elements , Dr. James L. Marshall and Virginia R. Marshall M.Ed.
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The old library of the Lit & Phil before its destruction. Source: official website of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
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Election of Ernest Rutherford as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society at the meeting of October 15, 1907.
Source: Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society. Volume 52 (1907-1908)
Election of Ernest Rutherford as vice-president of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society at the meeting of July 4, 1909.
Source: Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society. Volume 53 (1908-1909)
Radium Commission
Full name : International Radium Standard Commission
Foundation : established at the International Congress of Radiology and Electricity in Brussels in 1910.
Intended to establish a radium standard that would serve as an international reference for all activities (research or medical) related to the use of radioactive material, this commission included from the outset members of the various countries playing a role in the progress of this area over the past fifteen years or so:
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Marie Curie and André Debierne for France,
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Ernest Rutherford (president) and Frederick Soddy for England,
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Otto Hahn and Hans Geitel for Germany,
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Stefan Meyer (secretary) and Egon von Schweidler for Austria,
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Bertram Boltwood for the United States
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Arthur Stewart Eve for Canada
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The French and the Austrians are responsible for preparing samples of radium whose radiant activity will be measured.
Rutherford is developing a method of measurement and, as chairman of the commission, shakes everyone up a bit to get things done.
The two delicate points are not scientific, but financial and "diplomatic".
Radium is expensive and the members of the commission do not want the nations they represent to participate in its purchase: by refusing public money, the commission will remain independent of the states and therefore truly international. The solution is therefore to find private funding. They will come from a relative of one of the members: Doctor Beilby, who is none other than the wealthy father-in-law of Frederick Soddy.
On the "diplomatic" level, there is no particular tension between Germanic researchers and their Anglo-Saxon colleagues. The difficulties that arise are rather the fact of Marie Curie... facing all the others.
The fact is that Marie, considering radium (a chemical element she discovered in 1898) as her "baby", is reluctant to part with the sample she is preparing. However, all the members of the commission, Rutherford and Meyer in the lead, consider that to guarantee, here again, the independence of their organization, the standard, once constituted, evaluated and validated, should not be kept in the premises of one of the researchers involved in the project. The recommended solution is to deposit the radium standard at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM = International Bureau of Weights and Measures), in Sèvres, near Paris.
It will therefore be necessary that Ernest deploys treasures of persuasion to obtain the commitment of Marie Curie not to keep the standard. They will have a very long discussion on this subject during an evening spent in Brussels during the very first Solvay congress in November 1911.
The validation of the radium standard will be carried out in Paris, at the Sorbonne, between March 25 and 28, 1912.
The necessary financing will be obtained by Soddy from Beilby during the following summer.
Marie Curie, accompanied by André Debierne, will go to Sèvres to entrust her "baby" to the BIPM... in February 21, 1913.
The role of the International Radium Standards Commission will then be to validate the national standards required by the countries concerned.
Marie Curie in her laboratory at 12 rue Cuvier in Paris in 1913 - Source Musée Curie and Université de Paris
Example of a calibration certificate established for a secondary standard destined for the United States and signed by Stefan Meyer, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford; source: NIST
Sources:
Radioactivity measurements and the radium standard , Marie Curie. J. Phys. Theor. Appl., 1912, 2 (1), pp. 795-826.
Rutherford: being the life and letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, OM ., Arthur Stewart Eve, 1939
Rutherford, Scientist Supreme , book (1999) and website by John Campbell
Rutherford's ancestors , John Campbell
Rutherford, Simple Genius , David Wilson
My Dear Eve ... The Letters of Ernest Rutherford to Arthur Eve, 1907–1908 , Montague Cohen
Pierre and Marie Curie. Papers. II - PAPERS AND CORRESPONDENCE. LXXIX-CI Pierre and Marie Curie. Letters received. XCVII Radiological Society - Rutherford: Letters from Ernest Rutherford to Marie Curie can be found from sheet 326, which corresponds to page 385 of the scanned version .
Marie Curie , Susan Quinn
Marie Curie , Robert Reid
Otto Hahn: a scientific autobiography , pages 77-80
International Solvay Institute for Physics
Board of Invention and Research
The Board of Invention and Research (BIR) was created by the Royal Navy with the aim of harnessing the talents of scientists of the time to develop modern means of combat.
It is in this context that Ernest Rutherford worked to develop a system for detecting submarines (ancestor of sonar), in partnership with the French (including his friend Paul Langevin ) and the Americans.
As a consequence, he had to put his research on radioactivity aside (in reality, he would still try to move forward a little in this area, but he would also be penalized by the absence of several of his researchers, who had left for the battlesfields).
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Created in 1915, the BIR would be dissolved in 1918, but to be replaced by another body with equivalent attributions, the "Department of the Director of Experiments and Research", itself replaced in 1920 by the "Scientific Research and Experiment Department", itself replaced etc. (The entire genealogy of these official agencies can be found on the NavalHistoryArchive.org site.)
From its inception in 1915, the BIR was headed by Lord Fisher (John Arbuthnot Fisher, First Baron Fisher or, more trivially, "Jackie Fisher"), a seasoned 74-year-old sailor, wearing the high rank of Admiral of the Fleet.
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The first meetings, in July 1915, took place in a hotel, the Metropolis (now the Corinthia), but a few months later, the BIR took up its quarters in a building on Cockspur Street, a street connecting Pall Mall and Trafalgar Square. (See the page dedicated to London) .
Optimistic, Fisher decided to name the place "Victory House".
Picture :
Composition of the "Invention and Research Council". List updated June 18, 1918.
Among the visible names on that page appear those of Joseph John Thomson , Ernest Rutherford, William Henry Bragg and Robert Strutt.
Source: British Military lists / Navy lists, National Library of Scotland
Pictures:
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Ernest Rutherford, William Henry Bragg and Robert Strutt leaving the BIR premises at Victory House in 1915. Source: Rutherford's war , by John Campbell, IOP
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Lord Fisher in 1917. Source: Naval-History.net .
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The Metropole hotel shortly after its opening in 1885. Source: Wikipedia .
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Royal Institution
Full name : Royal Institution of Great Britain, abbreviated as Ri.
Motto : Science Lives Here
Foundation : March 7, 1799
Headquarters : 21 Albemarle Street in London (since July 1799)
Website : https://www.rigb.org/
Regarding the public conferences, I would especially like to present those that were inaugurated in 1826 by Michael Faraday, then director of the laboratory of the Ri: these "Friday lectures" still exist today and are as much a scientific event as they are social, attended by several hundred people, competing in elegance. The lecture theater which hosts this evening is named after Faraday and dates from 1800 (although it was completely redone in 1927 following a blaze).
The major missions of the Ri are the research and dissemination of knowledge to a variety of audiences, thanks to its resources (libraries, laboratories) and its various categories of public conferences. It was in its premises that Humphry Davy discovered several chemical elements (potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, etc.) between 1807 and 1809.
It was in this context that on April 30, 1897, JJ Thomson announced the discovery of the electron, the first constituent of the atom to be revealed. Six years later, on Friday June 19, 1903, Pierre and Marie Curie were in the spotlight. Marie, being a woman, was not authorized to speak, and it is thus Pierre alone who made a presentation of their work, under the simple title "Le Radium". He insisted, however, throughout his speech (in French) to recall the fundamental role that Marie had played in the discovery of radium and polonium, two new chemical elements, with a radioactive power much greater than that of uranium.
For Marie, this June 19 was also the occasion to meet Lord Kelvin, seated beside her during the lecture and who was amazed like a child by the sample of radium that Pierre Curie gave him; but above all she made the acquaintance of a British physicist named Hertha Ayrton. Having Polish origins and speaking excellent French (and also being a victim of the machismo of the world of science) Hertha became a faithful friend of Marie.
Ernest Rutherford also had the opportunity to give lectures on Friday, in March 1904, in June 1915 , in June 1919...
He also participated in the educational missions of the Ri as Professor of Natural Philosophy from 1921 to 1937.
His friend William Henry Bragg held the post of Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory (and "Superintendent of the House") from 1923 until his death in 1942. His son, William Lawrence Bragg, in turn assumed this dual role. from 1953 to 1966, after having assumed the succession of Rutherford in Manchester in 1919, then in Cambridge in 1938.
Pictures:
Façade of the Royal institution circa 1891. Source: Michael Faraday : Man of Science , Walter Jerrold.
Faraday delivering a Christmas Lecture at the Royal Institution in 1856. Source: Wikipedia .
First page of Pierre Curie's conference of June 19, 1903. Source: Royal Institution .
Friday Evening Discourse at the RI - Sir James Dewar on Liquid Hydrogen - by Henry Jamyn Brooks. Source: Wikipedia .
Sources :
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Michael Faraday : Man of Science, Walter Jerrold. 1891
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The collected papers of Lord Rutherford of Nelson, part I, page 641
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The collected papers of Lord Rutherford of Nelson, part II, page 494
The artist took some liberties with regard to reality, integrating in his painting personalities who were perhaps not present at this conference.
A regular auditor was Lord Kelvin, pictured on the left and partly hidden by his wife, Lady Fanny .
Another major figure was Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905, but who held many other positions of responsibility: he is seated in the front row, on the left side of the assembly, four places from Lord Kelvin and in front of a lady in purple dress
In the group on the right, a beardless face placed next to a bald and bearded man, himself a neighbor of a lady dressed in red, is that of Guglielmo Marconi, who could have been present at this evening since he was exercising already in England at that time.
Academic Assistance Council
Section under preparation.
Some information already appears
on the page dedicated to Albert Einstein
Picture :
Ernest Rutherford speaking in front of Albert Einstein during the AAC conference at the Royal Albert Hall (October 3, 1933).
Source: Passing Time
