Ernest Rutherford was a Physicist scientist and became known as the father of nuclear physics. He was born on August 30th, 1871 in Nelson, New Zealand. He was the fourth of 12 children ;was from a family of five daughters and seven sons. Rutherford was the second son of the family. His father's name was James Rutherford, and his mother’s was Martha Thompson. Rutherford came from a fairly poor family; money was tight , so as a child he found inventive ways of overcoming his family’s financial problems. At the age of ten, Rutherford was handed his first science book: the book inspired his first scientific experiment which was a miniature cannon. This was nothing compared to his inventions and discoveries that would happen later in his life. Rutherford had many achievements in his lifetime; he was very …show more content…
His professors at the school fueled his enthusiasm for finding concrete proof through scientific experimentation. Rutherford graduated from there and obtained both his Bachelor of Arts and his Master of Arts degrees. He had achieved first class honors in math and science. In 1894, he was awarded another scholarship;an 1851 Exhibition Science scholarship which enabled him to go to another college, Trinity College in Cambridge. He became a research student at the Cavendish laboratory in London under J.J Thomson. There Rutherford and Thomson collaborated on a study of x-rays.This resulted in a paper about dividing atoms and molecules into ions. Rutherford also had conducted research on the ability of high-frequency electrical discharge to magnetize iron. Earlier during that year he had met and fell in love with his future wife Mary Newton, whom he would have a daughter with that they named Eileen. They would marry in 1900. While in Cambridge Rutherford had