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Ernest Rutherford Research Paper

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Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Nelson, New Zealand. His Mother believed strongly in education so despite his poor upbringing in 1887 he got a scholarship at attend Nelson Collegiate School which was a private secondary school. Following that he earned a scholarship to Canterbury College where he earned a bachelor of arts degree, a masters in arts degree and a bachelor of science degree. In 1898 he left to take up a post in Canada. It was at this time that he married Mary Georgina Newton in 1900. While he worked as a professor at McGill University he made his first major discovery. He discovered that heavy elements decay into somewhat lighter elements which has led to important processes still used today such as carbon dating. He also wrote a highly regarded textbook on radioactivity. In 1907 he transferred to University of Manchester where he made his next groundbreaking discovery. He discovered using alpha particles and a gold foil that the vast majority of an atoms mass is concentrated in a nucleus. This changed our understanding of the atomic structure and caused advances in nuclear physics and helped lead to the discovery of the nuclear bomb, shaping history. In 1908 he won the nobel prize in chemistry for “investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances (Nobel citation)” 1. In 1914 he was knighted and during world war 1 his research was redirected to antisubmarine research. In 1919 he discovered how to artificially create a nuclear reaction in a stable element. On October 19th, 1937 he died at age 66 in Cambridge. …show more content…

He started his research by experimenting with high frequency alternating currents. From there he created a device capable of

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