"I Knew Lord Rutherford"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 351, 15 March 1946, Page 10

"I Knew Lord Rutherford"

(A Talk. in the Home Service of the BBC, by Sir

Henry

Tizard

President of Magdalen College, Oxford )

HE Right Honourable Baron Rutherford of Nelson, Order of Merit, Nobel Laureate, sometime President of the Royal Society, etc., etc., hereinafter to be called just plain simple Rutherford, as he was always known and always will be known in his greatness, was one of those astonishing geniuses who crop up now and then, at very rare intervals, and who seem to have been told a good many secrets of nature by a good fairy at their birth. Faraday, the real founder of the whole electrical industry, was such a man. Rutherford was ‘very like Faraday in his scientific genius and in his simplicity; but he had in addition the power and opportunity to gather round him and to inspire many young men. I never worked under Rutherford myself; never shared to the smallest extent in any of his triumphs; I am merely one of many to whom he gave friendship and encouragement, and who admired and loved him. I am going to try to tell- you something about him as a man; but as we cannot dissociate the man from his work, I must first remind you of what he did for science. Three Great Events There were three great events in Rutherford’s life. The first was when, as a young professor at McGill University, Montreal, he proved sthat the phenomena of radio activity were due to atoms breaking up of their own -accord, and turning into atoms of a different kind. This was a staggering blow to all preconceived notions about atoms, and it took a long time, and much hard work, before some older distinguished scientists accepted the new theory. The second was when, as Professor of Physics at Manchester, he proved that an atom must consist of a minute and very dense central core or nucleus of matter surrounded by electrons at a relatively large distance. This theory again completely upset all previous ideas, but has long since been well established and accepted. The third was when, as Cavendish Professor of Physics, he showed that atoms that did not break up of their own accord could be made to break up, and be transformed into other kinds of atoms, by artificial means. But you must not think of Rutherford as a man who had a few brilliant flashes of supreme genius, though any one of these three main discoveries would have been enough to bring fame to a lesser ‘man. The summer lightning of inspiration was always playing about Rutherford’s head; wherever he was working there was always something happening, something new to see and to discuss. All his life he was a voyager through strange seas of thought; but not alone. He always had a willing and happy crew with him. He was a tremendous worker, always improving experimental methods. Meals were snatched hastily when he was in the middle of an experiment. On such occasions as one of his laboratory assistants said to me, "he would eat a pork pie in his fingers with any of us." And he was like a great barrister; never

content with producing a piece of evidence that would satisfy the most intelligent member of the jury, but piling proof until the whole court was convinced of the truth. Big in Every Way He was a big man, big in every way, light. blue-eyed, thick-set, and _ looselimbed. I said that in his scientific work he was like Faraday. In some other ways he was like the famous Dr. Johnson. He came to dominate the scientific world, just as Dr. Johnson dominated the literary world nearly two hundred years ago. Like him he had a booming voice, a loud laugh, and a tendency to shout other people down in argument. He had the same boisterous spirits, but more sustained; the same love of folding his legs and having his talk out; the same robust and almost devastating commonsense, the same power to clear his own and other people’s minds of cant. He had a habit, attributed to other great men, of being able to go to sleep for a few minutes at any time of the day. He might look in to see me, start an animated conversation, then say, "I think I'll have a bit of sleep," fall soundly asleep for ten minutes, and then wake up suddenly and go on with the conversation where he left off. He had no false dignity and no vanity. He judged men on their merits, and not by their positions. If the laboratory boy was a good laboratory boy, he was Rutherford’s friend. Anyone who was trying to do a job well and honestly had his respect; he had no use for anyone who was pretentious. I remember his saying to me one day: "I’ve just been seeing So-and-So" — mentioning a man well known in public life! Pause-and then a puff of his pipe-and then: "Nothing much to him, is there?" And the fact is there wasn’t. It was only by the greatest piece of good luck that I got to know Rutherford just over 30 years ago. It happened in this way. The British Association was meeting in Australia in the summer of

1914, and the Australian Government had given free passages to about one hundred well-known British scientists. Almost at the last moment one of them could not go and no one of repute could be found to take his place at such short notice. A kind friend suggested me as a substitute and I packed and got on board as quickly as I could. Happy days! How it all comes back to me! Life’ seemed very secure and stable then, at any rate to a young man living in Oxford. Ignorance was bliss. The war broke out a few days before we reached Australia, but there was no sign of it when we left England, nor even when we left Cape Town. Everything was very peaceful. There was no excitement anywhere, except in the scientific world, where the most thrilling things were happening, and the author of most of the excitement, Rutherford, the great man himself, was on board-behaving like a high-spirited schoolboy home for the holidays. He was only a little over forty then. But he used to ‘play games on the Euripides. I partnered him at decktennis. He used to stand at the back of the court where he was worth a good many points to the side by keeping up a running commentary on the looks and behaviour of the opponents. We won the deck-tennis doubles together. Yes, by the way, I forgot that when I said that I had never shared in any of his triumphs. We won the deck-tennis doubles together. The Infection of Enthusiasm My memory of him then, as indeed afterwards, is that of a man who was always on the top of his form. There were moments when he was not, but they were so unusual that one forgets them. He bubbled with vitality. One of my memories is that of little children fascinated by the great man at breakfast to such an extent that the porridge spoons would be suspended half-way to the open mouths waiting for the next joke. Once when an unusually absurd remark was (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) made when the spoons had actually reached the mouths the result was catastrophic. Of course, he was not going to be let off, on board ship, without giving a lecture. He lectured to us all on "Radium." The audience consisted of a few scien- . tific men who knew a great deal about it, others who knew a very little about it; and the other passengers, male and female, who knew nothing about it: but he enthralled ‘us all. He discussed the properties of radium and dwelt upon its extreme rarity and value, and on the danger of keeping it for any length of time near one’s skin; and he then said: "Now, in order that you shall all know what radium bromide looks like, I will hand round this tube." The tube was passed rapidly round, handled gingerly, and returned to him safely. I noticed that there was rather a lot of this valuable material in the tube, so I asked Rutherford afterwards what the tube really contained. It was a mixture of common salt and sand! I must tell you something more about his lecturing, which was so characteristic. He was not a good speaker. He used to fumble for the right word and generally fail to find it. He disliked having to make formal speeches on official occasions. But when he lectured on his own subject, on the things he was doing, on the new great discoveries of physics, he was superb. The infection of his enthusiasm was caught by every member of the audience, and it did not matter in the least that the delivery was often halting; in fact, it added to the charm of the lecture. This was true "even cf his early days at McGill University. The professor of classics at McGill, who did not think much of scientists, once went to hear Rutherford lecture, and this is what he wrote afterwards: "Here was the rarest and most refreshing spectacle, the pure ardour of the chase, a man quite possessed. by a noble ‘work, and altogether happy in’ it." Tricks of Speech He had little tricks of speech which used to’come out regularly. For instance, he would say to a large audience: "I may tell you in confidence"; or he would say, "If you know what I mean," or "If you will allow me, I will do so-and-so ....," and I used to wonder what

would happen if the audience decided not to allow him. The rnf®re informal and intimate the lecture was, the better he was. He knew how to get on good terms with the young. Many years ago he came to Oxford to lecture to an undergraduate club on the "Theory of sthe Atom." There was a small dinner beforehand, at which Professor: Perkin, a professor of chemistry at Oxford and an old friend of WRutherford’s, was present. Professor Perkin, I may say, had a round head and a jolly, red face. Rutherford was in his usual high spirits and Perkin at last said: "You know, Rutherford, you are only an over-grown schoolboy, after all," to which Rutherford replied: "I’ll get even with you for that." When he started his lecture Rutherford said: "Now, in order to fix your ideas on the nucleus, I want you all to imagine a small round hard object -such as Professor Perkin’s head. The density of this object is almost unbelievably great." After this the lecture went with a bang, and no one was too shy to join in the discussion. A Believer in Simplicity I have a record of a lecture that Rutherford gave in Goettingen, in Germany, before the war. Here is a characteristic remark in the middle of the lecture when he had warmed up: ".... I had the opinion for a long time that if we knew more about the nucleus, we’d find it was a much simpler thing than we supposed. For the fundamental things, I think, have got to be fairly simple, but it’s the non-fundamental things that are very complex usually. So we are hope-ful-we must look for simplicity in the system first, and if there is simplicity we may not find it-well, we have got to look for something more complex. I am always a believer in simplicity, being a simple person myself... ." After the lecture the Chairman asked whether Rutherford would be willing to have a discussion. "It’s a question," he said, "of whether your dinner is more important than the discussion." So. they had the discussion. I wonder what choice they would make now. I think if it was Rutherford speaking they would sstill have the discussion rather than the dinner. During the discussion, in answer to a question about the nucleus, Rutherford said: "I don’t think it can be as simple as I have suggested, if you know what I mean. At the first approximation, I suppose it is fairly simple, but I am not sure-one doesn’t want to be too sure of the nucleus. It has many surprises for us." The nucleus certainly had many surprises for us. How often do I wish now, when I open my paper and see the latest pronouncement of scientist, statesman, or mere ignoramus about the atomic bomb that we had Rutherford with us again with his commanding genius, his power to go to the simple root of a problem, his abounding commonsense, and _ his faith in the future, to keep us all straight and sensible. The last time I saw Rutherford, or rather the last time I have a vivid memory of him, was when I went to see him in his cottage in Hampshire. I found him up a tree sawing off a branch. "I reckon I do know how to use a saw still,’ he said, and so he did. So far as I remember, I did not see him again. He died in 1937 after a few days’ illness. The ashes of no greater genius lie in Westminster Abbey,