1871 |
Aug 30. Born at Spring Grove (now Brightwater), Nelson Province, New Zealand. |
1877 |
Family moves to Foxhill, Nelson Province. |
1877-83 |
Attended Foxhill School, Nelson Province. |
1883 |
Family moves to Havelock, Marlborough Sounds.
|
1883-6 |
Attended Havelock School. |
1883 |
Baby brother Percy died of whooping cough. |
1886 |
Brothers Herbert and Charles drown in the Marlborough Sounds.
|
1887 |
Won a Marlborough Scholarship to Nelson College. |
1887-9 |
Attended Nelson College. |
1889 |
Won a University of New Zealand Junior Scholarship.
|
1890-4 |
Attended Canterbury College, University of New Zealand,
in Christchurch |
1892 |
Joined the
Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, now the Canterbury Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand. |
1892 |
Nov. Completed BA exams. (Note the award
was made, as usual, at the 1893 degree ceremony.) |
1893 |
First original
research on the high frequency magnetisation of iron. Developed a timing device which
could switch circuits in less than one hundred thousandth of a second. |
1893 |
Completed exams for MA with
double First Class Honours; in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, and in Physical Science. |
1894 |
Completed the exams for his BSc in Chemistry and Geology.
Extended his research to higher frequencies using discharging Leyden jars and a Hertzian oscillator.
Developed a magnetic detector of very short current pulses. |
1894 |
His first research paper published.
(Note. This covered his second year of research (1894) not his first year of research (1893.)) |
1895 |
Awarded an Exhibition of 1851 scholarship
to go anywhere in the world to carry out research of importance to New Zealand's industries. |
1895-8 |
Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University. |
1895 |
Measured the high frequency dielectric properties
of materials. Used his magnetic detector as part of a frequency meter. |
1896 |
Jan. Roentgen publicly announces the discovery of X-rays.
|
|
Feb. Ern sets the
world record for the distance over which `wireless' waves were detected. |
|
Mar. Becquerel announces the discovery of radioactivity.
|
|
Apr. Ern is
invited to work with JJ Thomson on electrical conduction in gases. |
1897 |
xx. Ern is capped as one of Cambridge's
first B.A.(by research) graduates, his 4th degree.
|
1897 |
JJ Thomson
announces the discovery of the electron, the first object lighter than an atom. |
1898 |
Ern discovers rays
from radioactive materials are of two main types, which he names alpha and beta. |
1898-07 |
McGill University. Now Professor Rutherford.
|
1899 |
Demonstrates the
principle which is the basis of the modern smoke detector. |
1899 |
Discovers a radioactive gas, later to be named radon.
|
1900 |
Awarded MSc from Mcgill University, his 5th degree.
|
1900 |
Marries Mary Georgina Newton in Christchurch, New Zealand.
|
1900 |
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
|
1901 |
DSc from the University of New Zealand.
Now Dr Rutherford.
|
1901 |
Daughter Eileen born. |
1902 |
Announces formally that "radioactivity is a
manifestation of sub-atomic change." |
1903 |
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
|
1904 |
Awarded the
Rumford Medal, his first major science prize. |
1905 |
Reconciles
geologists and physicists determinations of the age of the Earth. |
1905 |
Family visit to New Zealand. |
1906 |
Apr. Awarded an honorary Doctorate by Pennsylvania State University. |
1907 |
Aug. Awarded a D.Phil degree by Giessen University. |
1907-19 |
Manchester University. |
1908 |
Invents the Rutherford-Geiger
detector of single ionizing particles. |
1908 |
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
|
1909 |
Sep. Awarded an honorary Dr.Phys. by Clark University.
|
1910 |
Purchases his first car.
|
1910 |
Sister Alice dies.
|
1911 |
Ern announces the nuclear model of the atom.
|
1914 |
Knighted. Now Sir Ernest Rutherford.
|
1914 |
Aug. Awarded a D.Sc. from the University of Melbourne,
as aprt of the BAAS meeting in Australia.
|
1914
|
Visits New
Zealand. Canterbury College given approval to build a physics department. |
1914-18 |
First World War.
|
1915-17 |
Pioneer work on
acoustic methods of detecting submarines.
|
1916 |
Ern and W H Bragg
patent his unidirectional hydrophone for the British Admiralty.
|
1916 |
States publicly in the middle of WW1
that he hoped mankind should not discover how to extract the energy from the nucleus until man was
living at peace with his neighbour.
|
1917
|
Leads the allied
delegation to America to transfer anti-submarine knowledge.
|
1917 |
Becomes the
world's first successful alchemist, changing nitrogen into hydrogen ie he splits the atom.
|
1919-37 |
Director of the
Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University.
|
1919 |
Elected an
inaugural Fellow of the New Zealand Institute, now the Royal Society of New Zealand.
|
1920 |
Predicts the existence of the neutron.
|
1922 |
Elected Corresponding Member
of the Russian Academy of Science 2/12/22.
|
1924 |
Aug. Awarded an honorary D.Sc.
from the University of Toronto.
|
1924 |
Edward Appleton
and Miles Barnett (of New Zealand) prove the existence of the ionosphere. Appleton
received the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physics.
|
1925 |
Elected Honorary Member of the
Russian Academy of Science 3/1/25.
|
1925-30 |
President of the Royal Society of London.
|
1925 |
Order of Merit. |
1927 |
Awarded an honorary D.Sc. from Yale University.
|
1925 |
Visits Australia
and New Zealand. The New Zealand DSIR is formed in 1926.
|
1928 |
Father dies. |
1929-37 |
Chairman of the
Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. |
1930 |
Daughter Eileen
dies two days before Christmas. |
1931 |
Raised to the
Peerage at New Year, now Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson. |
1931 |
Jan. Awarded the first honorary D.Sc.
from the University of New Zealand.
|
1931 |
Jun. Awarded an honorary D.Sc.
from the University of London.
|
1931 |
Awarded an honorary D.Phil. from
Goettingen University.
|
1931-33 |
President of the Institute of Physics.
|
1932 |
Cockcroft and
Walton use an accelerator to split the atom. Chadwick discoveres the neutron. Each received a Nobel Prize.
|
1933-37 |
President of the Academic Assistance Council.
|
1934 |
Ern and Oliphant
discover H3 (tritium) and He3. |
1935 |
Mother dies. |
1935 |
Opens the LMS Railway Research
Labs at Derby, 10th Dec 1935. |
1937 |
Died 19th Oct
1937. Ashes interred in Westminister Abbey. |