Ernest Rutherford

Physicist

Birthday August 30, 1871

Birth Sign Virgo

Birthplace Brightwater, New Zealand

DEATH DATE Oct 19, 1937 (66)

#71,584 Most Popular

About

The father of nuclear physics who discovered that atoms have a positive charge located in a nucleus in 1911. He also developed the concept of radioactive half-life, which describes the exponential decay radioactive substances.

Before Fame

He couldn't continue his work at Cambridge because of arcane rules about his young age.

Trivia

He is widely credited as the first person to split the atom in a nuclear reaction in 1917 and he won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances.

Family Life

He had five sisters and six brothers.

Associated With

Another famous physicist like him was Max Planck.