Richard Reeves
Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the â€œhalf-lifeâ€ of radioactive materials, which led to a massive reevaluation of the age of the earthâ€”previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forcesâ€”forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb.,Rutherford, awarded a Nobel Prize and made Baron Rutherford by the queen of England, was also a great ambassador of science, coming to the aid of colleagues caught in the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Under Rutherfordâ€™s rigorous and boisterous direction, a whole new generation of remarkable physicists emerged. In Richard Reâ€™s hands, Rutherford leaps off the page, a ruddy, genial man and a towering figure in scientific history.
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A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford