Liverpool
A transatlantic port linking up with Montreal , Liverpool has seen Ernest Rutherford pass as a passenger several times. But it was also in this city, in 1896, that he participated in his first international conference; and presented his first invention ... the principles of which we still use today.
Rutherford's visits to Liverpool:
1896: BAAS meeting
1898: boarding for Montreal
1903: visit to England
1907: move to England
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1923: BAAS meeting
In 1896, Ernest Rutherford worked at Cambridge, under the direction of Joseph John Thomson. The latter, enthusiastic about Rutherford's work on the reception of electromagnetic waves, suggested that he present them during the annual conference of the British Association.
The two physicists therefore went to Liverpool together. It is in fact in this city, and more precisely in the St-George Hall that this scientific event took place.
Ernest presented his results and provided demonstrations of the setups he used. He meets with a rather warm welcome... until one of the listeners of his conference intervened to tell him about the work of an Italian named Guglielmo Marconi. In fact Marconi had obtained results similar to those of Rutherford, but over greater transmission distances and with a much more practical system for converting the electromagnetic waves received into a usable message.
Thus distanced from his competitor, Rutherford put aside these waves, to turn to X-rays, then radioactivity... of which he would become the indisputable leader.
Places of Ernest Rutherford's life
Images:
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LiverpoolSt-George Hall 1904. Source: Liverpool Echo
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Outside the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Source: Chester Walls Info
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Interior of the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. Source: Liverpool Echo
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First page of the report of Rutherford's intervention on September 12, 1923, published in Nature on the 15th of the same month. Source: Nature
Proof of Rutherford's success in his new field of research is the fact that 27 years after this public failure, he returned to Liverpool no longer as the beginner promoted by his director, but as president of the British Association (and occupant of elsewhere for 4 years the position of director ceded by J.J. Thomson).
His return to the banks of the Mersey was also the occasion for a technical marvel: in fact, inaugurating the BA conference,On September 12, 1923, Ernest Rutherford gave a speech broadcast across Britain by the BBC.
The location of the conference had also changed, since it was from the Philharmonic Hall that Ernest's voice went through the air to the whole territory of Britain.
On this occasion, he retraced the history of 2 major scientific developments of the first quarter of the 20th century: radioactivity and wireless communication. He then cited, obviously, his own work from 1896, but also Guglielmo Marconi.
