Ernest Rutherford Quotes
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I congratulate you both on a fine piece of work which I am sure will ultimately prove of importance. I am personally very much interested in your results... In the past I have tried a number of experiments... but without any success.
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Should a young scientist working with me come to me after two years of such work and ask me what to do next, I would advise him to get out of science. After two years of work, if a man does not know what to do next, he will never make a real scientist.
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Splitting the atom is like trying to shoot a gnat in the Albert Hall at night and using ten million rounds of ammunition on the off chance of getting it. That should convince you that the atom will always be a sink of energy and never a reservoir of energy.
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It is essential for men of science to take an interest in the administration of their own affairs or else the professional civil servant will step in - and then the Lord help you.
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You know, I am sorry for the poor fellows that haven't got labs to work in.
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Now I know what the atom looks like.
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We haven't got the money, so we've got to think.
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A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.
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I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)
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From the results so far obtained it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the long-range atoms arising from collision of alpha particles with nitrogen are not nitrogen atoms but probably atoms of hydrogen, or atoms of mass 2. If this be the case, we must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated under the intense forces developed in a close collision with a swift alpha particle, and that the hydrogen atom which is liberated formed a constituent part of the nitrogen nucleus.
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All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.
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If, as I have reason to believe, I have disintegrated the nucleus of the atom, this is of greater significance than the war.
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It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.
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An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
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The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't.
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From uranium there are present at least two distinct types of radiation one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character, which will be termed the β radiation.
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That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.
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Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. .... The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.
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The greatest contributor to the feeling of tension and fear of war arose from the power of the bombing aeroplane. If all nations would consent to abolish air bombardment . . . that would mean the greatest possible release from fear.
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If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
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I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.
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I am a great believer in the simplicity of things and as you probably know I am inclined to hang on to broad & simple ideas like grim death until evidence is too strong for my tenacity.
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A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.
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Every good laboratory consists of first rate men working in great harmony to insure the progress of science; but down at the end of the hall is an unsociable, wrong-headed fellow working on unprofitable lines, and in his hands lies the hope of discovery.