![]() ![]() It was a short but fruitful collaboration in which the pair determined the first few steps in the natural transmutation of the heavy elements. Soddy’s address “Chemical evidence for the indivisibility of the atom” attacked physicists, especially Thomson and Rutherford, who “… have been known to give expression to opinions on chemistry in general and the atomic theory in particular which call for strong protest.” Rutherford invited Soddy, who specialised in gas analysis, to join him. Rutherford spoke to the motion and was opposed by a young Oxford chemist, Frederick Soddy, who was at McGill by chance. ![]() In 1901, the McGill Physical Society called a meeting titled “The existence of bodies smaller than an atom”. He discovered radon, demonstrated that radio-activity was just the natural transmutation of certain elements, showed that alpha particles could be deviated in electric and magnetic fields (and hence were likely to be helium atoms minus two electrons), dated minerals and determined the age of the Earth, among other achievements. In 1898 Rutherford took a chair in physics at McGill University in Canada, where he achieved several seminal results. His life’s work changed to understanding radioactivity and he named the alpha and beta rays. Rutherford was an immediate believer in objects smaller than the atom. ![]() Just after his arrival, the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity were announced and J J Thomson discovered the electron. After obtaining three degrees from the University of New Zealand, and with two years’ original research at the forefront of the electrical technology of the day, in 1895 he won an Exhibition of 1851 Science Scholarship, which took him to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in the UK. I n his early days, Ernest Rutherford was the right man in the right place at the right time. Credit: Artist R Mathews McGill University. Nuclear giant Ernest Rutherford in Canada in 1907. The events leading to Ernest Rutherford’s discovery of the proton, published in 1919. ![]()
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