Recollections of Lord Rutherford

Abstract

Abstract I am greatly honoured by the invitation of the President of the Royal Society to speak to you on my reminiscences of Lord Rutherford. But this is a very difficult task and I accepted it after long deliberation. At first sight I thought that to speak about the scientific achievements of so great a scientist as Rutherford would be easy. The greater the achievements of a scientist the more exactly and briefly can they be described. Rutherford created the modern study of radioactivity; he was the first to understand that it is the spontaneous disintegration of the atoms of radioactive elements. He was the first to produce the artificial disintegration of the nucleus and finally he was the first to discover that the atom has a planetary system. Each of these achievements is sufficient to make a man a great physicist. But nowadays these achievements and their fundamental values are well known not only to research students but even to schoolboys. Equally we all know the very simple and beautiful classical experiments by means of which Rutherford made his great discoveries. To come from the Soviet Union to speak about all this to the Fellows of the Royal Society would scarcely be appropriate. You are all well aware that from research into radioactivity there grew up an independent science which is now called nuclear physics, and of all the papers published on physical research one fifth relate to the investigation of nuclear phenomena. Both nuclear energy and the use of artificial radioactivity in science and technology are developing quickly and simultaneously. All these fields absorb the main bulk of the monetary resources spent on science and which now reaches the sum of thousands of millions of pounds, dollars and roubles. And all this for the last 30 years grew out of one modest domain of physics which in the old days was called radioactivity and the father of which is justly called Rutherford. To speak of the development of nuclear technology and physics which came from the work of Rutherford and his school is very interesting and very instructive. But I am sure that such Fellows of the Royal Society as our President Professor Blackett, Sir James Chadwick, Sir John Cockcroft, Sir Charles Ellis and Sir Mark Oliphant who in the old days were the most active members of Rutherford’s school and who themselves in this domain have made fundamental discoveries and researches are certainly more qualified than I to speak on these matters.