Editing Ernest Rutherford (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:Statue of Ernest Rutherford.JPG|right|thumb|A statue of a young Ernest Rutherford at [[Ernest Rutherford memorial|his memorial]] in [[Brightwater]], New Zealand.]]

At the opening session of the 1938 [[Indian Science Congress Association|Indian Science Congress]], which Rutherford had been expected to preside over before his death, astrophysicist [[James Jeans]] spoke in his place and deemed him "one of the greatest scientists of all time", saying:

{{blockquote|In his flair for the right line of approach to a problem, as well as in the simple directness of his methods of attack, [Rutherford] often reminds us of Faraday, but he had two great advantages which Faraday did not possess, first, exuberant bodily health and energy, and second, the opportunity and capacity to direct a band of enthusiastic co-workers. Great though Faraday's output of work was, it seems to me that to match Rutherford's work in quantity as well as in quality, we must go back to Newton. In some respects he was more fortunate than Newton. Rutherford was ever the happy warrior – happy in his work, happy in its outcome, and happy in its human contacts.<ref>{{cite news |title=Viceroy Opens The Congress – Sir James Jeans's Address|work=The Times |location=Calcutta |date=3 January 1938 }}</ref>}}

=== Nuclear physics ===
Rutherford is known as "the father of nuclear physics" because his research, and work done under him as laboratory director, established the nuclear structure of the atom and the essential nature of radioactive decay as a nuclear process.<ref name=Father>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford |url=https://ehs.msu.edu/lab-clinic/rad/hist-figures/rutherford.html |website=Environmental Health and Safety Office of Research Regulatory Support |publisher=Michigan State University |access-date=23 June 2023 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622163634/https://ehs.msu.edu/lab-clinic/rad/hist-figures/rutherford.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ernest Rutherford: father of nuclear science |url=https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/ernest-rutherford-father-of-nuclear-science/ |website=New Zealand Media Resources |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612184534/https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/ernest-rutherford-father-of-nuclear-science/ |archive-date=12 June 2021 |language=en |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Hindu>{{cite web |title=Know the scientist: Ernest Rutherford |url=https://www.thehindu.com/children/know-the-scientist-ernest-rutherford/article34837002.ece |website=The Hindu |access-date=23 June 2023 |language=en-IN |date=17 June 2021 |archive-date=23 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623183847/https://www.thehindu.com/children/know-the-scientist-ernest-rutherford/article34837002.ece |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Patrick Blackett]], a research fellow working under Rutherford, using natural alpha particles, demonstrated ''induced'' [[nuclear transmutation]]. Later, Rutherford's team, using protons from an accelerator, demonstrated ''artificially-induced'' nuclear reactions and transmutation.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Giunta |first1=Carmen |title=Rutherford and Blackett artificial transmutation |url=https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/classicalcs/ruthblack.html |website=web.lemoyne.edu |access-date=27 June 2023 |date=2019 |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627010731/https://web.lemoyne.edu/giunta/classicalcs/ruthblack.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rutherford died too early to see [[Leó Szilárd]]'s idea of controlled [[nuclear chain reaction]]s come into being. However, a speech of Rutherford's about his artificially-induced transmutation in lithium, printed in the 12 September 1933 issue of ''[[The Times]]'', was reported by Szilárd to have been his inspiration for thinking of the possibility of a controlled energy-producing [[nuclear chain reaction]].<ref>{{cite web |title=September 12, 1933 – Leó Szilárd conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction |url=https://rinconeducativo.org/en/anniversaries/september-12-1933-leo-szilard-conceives-the-idea-of-the-nuclear-chain-reaction/#:~:text=On%20September%2012%2C%201933%2C%20in%20London%2C%20Szil%C3%A1rd%20read,transformation%20of%20atoms%20was%20talking%20about%20%22silly%20alcohol%22. |website=Rincón educativo |access-date=27 June 2023 |language=Spanish, English |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627010731/https://rinconeducativo.org/en/anniversaries/september-12-1933-leo-szilard-conceives-the-idea-of-the-nuclear-chain-reaction/#:~:text=On%20September%2012%2C%201933%2C%20in%20London%2C%20Szil%C3%A1rd%20read,transformation%20of%20atoms%20was%20talking%20about%20%22silly%20alcohol%22. |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rutherford's speech touched on the 1932 work of his students [[John Cockcroft]] and [[Ernest Walton]] in "splitting" lithium into alpha particles by bombardment with protons from a particle accelerator they had constructed. Rutherford realised that the energy released from the split lithium atoms was enormous, but he also realised that the energy needed for the accelerator, and its essential inefficiency in splitting atoms in this fashion, made the project an impossibility as a practical source of energy (accelerator-induced fission of light elements remains too inefficient to be used in this way, even today). Rutherford's speech in part, read:

{{blockquote|We might in these processes obtain very much more energy than the proton supplied, but on the average we could not expect to obtain energy in this way. It was a very poor and inefficient way of producing energy, and anyone who looked for a source of power in the transformation of the atoms was talking moonshine. But the subject was scientifically interesting because it gave insight into the atoms.<ref>{{Cite news|work=The Times |title=The British association – breaking down the atom |date=12 September 1933}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rhodes |first=Richard |title=The Making of the Atomic Bomb |location=New York |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1986 |page=27 |author-link=Richard Rhodes |title-link=The Making of the Atomic Bomb |isbn=0-671-44133-7}}</ref>}}

The element [[rutherfordium]], Rf, Z=104, was named in honour of Rutherford in 1997.<ref>{{cite news|author=Freemantle, Michael|title=ACS Article on Rutherfordium|url=http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html|work=Chemical & Engineering News|publisher=American Chemical Society|year=2003|access-date=2 April 2008|archive-date=28 March 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080328131206/http://pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/print/rutherfordium.html|url-status=live}}</ref>