129. Rutherford, Ernest. Typed letter signed (“Rutherford”), 1 page (4.5 x 7 in.; 114 x 178 mm.), on “Newnham Cottage, Queen’s Road, Cambridge” blind-stamped stationery, 18 June 1931, written to “Dear Mr. Spicer”. Minor ink transfer below date.

Ernest Rutherford – the father of nuclear physics.

Rutherford writes in full:
Dear Mr. Spicer, I thank you for your kindness in sending me copies of some of the films which are excellent. I must take this opportunity of thanking you for the very pleasant and interesting day you gave us at Sawston. Yours sincerely, Rutherford

In his early work, New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered the concept of radioactive half-life, proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. This work, done at McGill University in Canada, is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908. Interestingly, Rutherford performed his most famous work after he became a Nobel laureate. In 1911 he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small nucleus, and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model of the atom. He is widely credited with being the first to “split the atom” in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen and alpha particles, in which he also discovered (and named) the proton. In 1919 Rutherford became the Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Under his leadership, the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. In the same year, the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner was performed by students working under his direction (John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton). $800 - $1,200

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