THE VOICE OF RUTHERFORD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 485, 8 October 1948, Page 7

THE VOICE OF RUTHERFORD

ECAUSE gramophone records are manufactured primarily | for entertainment, it is not often that the voices of scientists are committed to discs, though speakers on scientific subjects are heard frequently from broadcasting studios. But there are in New Zealand some recordings of the voice of the New Zealand-born — scientist, Lord Rutherford, one of the greatest names ‘in the story of atomic physics, who died on October 19, 1937. Parts of them will be heard in a programme to be broadcast on Sunday, October 17, from 1ZB at 5.30 pm. 2ZB and 4ZB at 4.30 p.m. and 2ZA at 5.30 p.m. (Station 3ZB presented the programme a few weeks ago.) The records are introduced by Dr. G. T. P. Tarrant, Senior Lecturer in Physics at Canterbury University College, who worked with Lord Rutherford for eight years in the Cavendish Laboratory and who points out that when most other famous names have been forgotten, the work of Rutherford will still be affecting the daily life and thought of almost every inhabitant of . globe. The recordings of Rutherford’s voice were taken in the hall of Gottingen University, Germany, in 1931, at the time .of Rutherford’s receiving the honorary degree of Doctor of Philoso- | phy,.and during one of his lectures to

students of the University. It seems likely that he was unaware that the discs were being made, for there are gaps in the speech between the completion of one record and the setting up of another blank disc.. When Sob Rutherford died, Professor Pohl, o made the recordings, looked out the matrices of the conferring of the degree and the lecture and eventually the records were issued privately by a gramophone company as a memorial

for those who had worked with Ruthere ford. On its way to New Zealand the last record of the set was broken; and as this set is possibly ‘the only one in New Zealand, the producer of the programme to be heard on October 17 (Brian Salkeld, of Station 3ZB) set about mending the break.. By careful fitting, glueing and pressirg he persuaded it to hold together long enough to make a re-recording. Listeners will hear first Lord Rutherford’s expression of thanks to the University of Gottingen for the honour paid to him and some comments which reflect his interest in»the connection between the Wniversity and the achievements of British science. He says, addressing students and ,others in the hall: "I must apologise for speaking to you in English; but I have the excuse that I was born at the other end of the world. And if you heard me speaking German, you would be very grateful that I am speaking to you in English." _ The second part of the programme contains a small part of one of Rutherford’s_lectures on the structure of the atom. He says: "If we knew more about it, we would find it more simple than we now suppose. I am a believer in simplicity, being a very simple person myself." Though the records were made as long ago as 1931, and obviouslyw under some difficulty, they are remarkably clear.