A force of nature : the frontier genius of Ernest Rutherford /
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| Author / Creator: | Reeves, Richard, 1936- |
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| Edition: | 1st ed. |
| Imprint: | New York : W. W. Norton & Co., c2008. |
| Description: | 207 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 21 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Great discoveries |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | Print Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/6644684 |
| Summary: | 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 "half-life" of radioactive materials, which led to a massive reevaluation of the age of the earth--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 forces--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 Rutherford's rigorous and boisterous direction, a whole new generation of remarkable physicists emerged. In Richard Re's hands, Rutherford leaps off the page, a ruddy, genial man and a towering figure in scientific history. |
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| Item Description: | "Atlas books." |
| Physical Description: | 207 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 21 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-195) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780393057508 039305750X |
