A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford

Reeves Richard

ISBN 10: 039305750X / ISBN 13: 9780393057508

Published by W.W. Norton & Co., New York and London, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 191888

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Force of Nature The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co., New York and London
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039305750X
• ISBN 13: 9780393057508
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

A new intellectual biography of Ernest Rutherford, the twentieth century’s greatest experimental physicist.

Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the “half-life” of radioactive materials, which led to a massive reevaluation of the age of the earth―previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forces―forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb. Rutherford, awarded a Nobel Prize and made Baron Rutherford by the queen of England, was also a great ambassador of science, coming to the aid of colleagues caught in the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Under Rutherford’s rigorous and boisterous direction, a whole new generation of remarkable physicists emerged. In Richard Re’s hands, Rutherford leaps off the page, a ruddy, genial man and a towering figure in scientific history.

About the Author

Richard Reeves, an award-winning historian and columnist, is the author of many books, including President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination. He is a senior lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He splits his time between New York City and Santa Monica, California.