A Force of Nature

Born in colonial New Zealand Ernest Rutherford grew up on the frontiera different world from Cambridge to which he won a scholarship at the age of twenty-four. His work revolutionized modern physics. Among his discoveries were the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the half-life of radioactive materials. Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom unlocking tremendous forcesforces as Rutherford himself predicted that would bring us the atomic bomb. In Richard Reeves''s hands Rutherford comes alive a ruddy genial man and a pivotal figure in scientific history.