Rutherford, Ernest

Rutherford, Ernest, (1871-1937), British physicist, who became a Nobel laureate for his pioneering work in nuclear physics and for his theory of the structure of the atom. Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, in Nelson, New Zealand, and was educated at the University of New Zealand and the University of Cambridge. Rutherford was one of the first and most important researchers in nuclear physics. Soon after the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by the French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, Rutherford identified the three main components of radiation and named them alpha, beta, and gamma rays

Rutherford was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1903 and served as president of that institution from 1925 to 1930. He was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, was knighted in 1914, and was made a baron in 1931. He died in London on October 19, 1937, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.