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Ernest Rutherford Quotes (1871-1937)
Physicist, King
About Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nuclear physics", and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday". In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Ernest Rutherford quotes.
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“When money is short there is no alternative but to think.”
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
“Don't let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my department.”
“That which is not measurable is not science. — also attributed to Lord Kelvin”
“I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.”
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”
“An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.”
“It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”
“It is just as surprising as if a gunner fired a shell at a single sheet of paper and for some reason or other the projectile bounded back again.”
“Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. … The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.”
“When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.”
“"...Rutherford never spent more than £2500 a year on his research programme. He resisted suggestions that an industrial appeal might provide him with more money and he did not believe in the economic significance of any of the work he was doing. He used to boast that ‘we have no money, so we shall have to think’."
• Unsourced variant: We didn't have the money, so we had to think.”
• Unsourced variant: We didn't have the money, so we had to think.”
“We may in these processes obtain very great quantities of energy, but on the average we cannot hope to obtain energy for practical use in this way. The bombardment of the atom is a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy and anyone who is looking for a source of cheap power in the transformation of the atom, is talking pure moonshine... Some day the knowledge we may gain may be of practical value, but there is no indication of it yet.”
“I came into the room which was half-dark and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience, and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his.
To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me.
Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me.”
To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me.
Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me.”
“It is not in the nature of things for any one man to make a sudden violent discovery; science goes step by step, and every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you hear of a sudden unexpected discovery—a bolt from the blue, as it were—you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence of one man on another, and it is this mutual influence which makes the enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not dependent on the ideas of a single man, but on the combined wisdom of thousands of men, all thinking of the same problem, and each doing his little bit to add to the great structure of knowledge which is gradually being erected.”
“The first point that arises is the atom. I was brought up to look at the atom as a nice hard fellow, red or grey in colour, according to taste. In order to explain the facts, however, the atom cannot be regarded as a sphere of material, but rather as a sort of wave motion of a peculiar kind. The theory of wave-mechanics, however bizarre it may appear... has the astonishing virtue that it works, and works in detail, so that it is now possible to understand and explain things which looked almost impossible in earlier days. One of the problems encountered is the relation between the electron, an atom and the radiation produced by them jointly; the new mechanics states the type of radiation emitted with correct numerical relations. When applied to the periodic table, a competent and laborious mathematician can predict the periodic law from first principles.”
Ernest Rutherford Quotes by Topic
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Ernest Rutherford on Science 3 quotes
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
Ernest Rutherford on Electron 2 quotes
“The theory that the atoms of matter are all built up of some simple fundamental unit or protyle has been advanced at various times by prominent chemists and physicists. One of the earliest hypotheses of this kind was that due to Prout, who supposed that all the elements were built up of hydrogen. This general point of view has received strong support from observations that the properties of elements vary in a periodic manner with their atomic weight. This is exemplified by the classification of the elements according to the well-known periodic law. In order to explain the electrical and optical properties of matter, it was generally supposed that the atom consisted of a number of positively and negatively charged particles, held in equilibrium by electrical forces. The properties of such electrical atoms were early studied by Larmor and Lorentz.”
Ernest Rutherford on Physics
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”
Ernest Rutherford on Chemistry
“I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.”
Ernest Rutherford on Metamorphosis
“I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.”
Ernest Rutherford on Bohr model
“I do not know if you appreciate the fact that long papers have a way of frightening readers, who feel that they have not time to dip into them.”
Ernest Rutherford on Atomic theory
“The study of the radio-active substances and of the discharge of electricity through gases has supplied very strong experimental evidence in support of the fundamental ideas of the existing atomic theory. It has also indicated that the atom itself is not the smallest unit of matter but is a complicated structure made up of a number of smaller bodies.”
Ernest Rutherford on Metal
“It seemed probable that the large activity of some of these minerals, compared with uranium and thorium, was due to the presence of small quantities of some very active substance, which was different from the known bodies thorium and uranium. This supposition was completely verified by the work of M. and Mme Curie, who were able to separate from pitchblende by purely chemical methods two active bodies, one of which in the pure state is over a million times more active than the metal uranium. This important discovery was due entirely to the property of radio-activity possessed by the new bodies. The only guide in their separation was the activity of the products obtained. ...The activity of the specimens thus served as a basis of rough qualitative and quantitative analysis, analogous in some respects to the indication of the spectroscope.”
What Ernest Rutherford Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Ernest Rutherford shared regarding contemporaries.
Ernest Rutherford on Nikola Tesla
“All scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science.”
Quotes About Ernest Rutherford
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Chandrasekhar on Ernest Rutherford
“Rutherford's attitude to his own discoveries is illustrated by his response to a remark of one who was present at the moment of one of his great discoveries: "Rutherford, you are always on the crest of the wave." To which Rutherford responded: "I made the wave, didn't I?" Somehow from Rutherford's vantage point everything he said seems right, even including his remark, "I do not let my boys waste their time" when he was asked if he encouraged his students to study relativity! Rutherford was a happy warrior if ever there was one.”
Kurt Becker on Ernest Rutherford
“In 2005, we had a couple of things going for us. First, of course, we knew how the experiment was supposed to come out. They had been out there in the blue. We also had faster, stronger, and more reliable equipment to pull vacuums, greatly reducing the results contaminated by the odd air molecule or hydrogen atom. But we, and the world, now know the deadly dangers of radioactivity. Rutherford used to toss bits of radioactive material in his pocket and then, before dinner, into the top drawer of his desk at home. ...If we tried to use what they used, we couldn't all be in this room... We couldn't be in the building.”
Freeman Dyson on Ernest Rutherford 4 quotes
“Rutherford's discovery was the beginning of the science that came to be called nuclear physics. ...The projectiles that he used to explore the nucleus were particles produced in the disintegration of radium... discovered by Marie Curie in 1898. The particles are helium nuclei that are emitted at high speed when radium atoms decay...The twenty years between 1909 and 1929 were the era of tabletop nuclear physics. ...Small and simple experiments were sufficient to establish the basic laws of nuclear physics.”
Paul Langevin on Ernest Rutherford
Richard Reeves on Ernest Rutherford
“He seemed bored with his radio work. ...he had transmitted signals more than half a mile through Cambridge's stone builidings, and there was great interest in finding a way to use such signals in ship-to-shore communications... Some scientists, astonished at those demonstrations, believed that Rutherford's work in New Zealand and then at the Cavendish was actually ahead of the work being done by Guglielmo Marconi...”
About Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nuclear physics", and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday". In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada.