Quotes About Ernest Rutherford

#1. Upon his return to New York, Robert opened his mail to learn that Ernest Rutherford had rejected him. "Rutherford wouldn't have me," Oppenheimer recalled. "He didn't think much of Bridgman and my credentials were peculiar.

Kai Bird

#2. Ernest Rutherford's 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry wasn't given for the nuclear power station - he wouldn't have survived that long - it was given for showing how interesting atomic physics could be.

Andre Geim

#3. His work was so great that it cannot be compassed in a few words. His death is one of the greatest losses ever to occur to British science.

{Describing Ernest Rutherford upon his death at age 66. Thomson, then 80 years old, was once his teacher.}

J.J. Thomson

#4. We haven't got the money, so we've got to think.

Ernest Rutherford

#5. Don't let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my department.

Ernest Rutherford

#6. If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment.

Ernest Rutherford

#7. Never say, "I tried it once and it did not work."

Ernest Rutherford

#8. Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.

Ernest Rutherford

#9. Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It's time to start thinking.

Ernest Rutherford

#10. If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

Ernest Rutherford

#11. That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.

Ernest Rutherford

#12. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#13. You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1.

Ernest Rutherford

#14. A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.

Ernest Rutherford

#15. Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting.

Ernest Rutherford

#16. 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)

Ernest Rutherford

#17. When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time.

Ernest Rutherford

#18. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#19. If, as I have reason to believe, I have disintegrated the nucleus of the atom, this is of greater significance than the war.
[Apology to the international anti-submarine committee for being absent from several meetings during World War I.]

Ernest Rutherford

#20. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#21. I have to keep going, as there are always people on my track. I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race. The best sprinters in this road of investigation are Becquerel and the Curies ...

Ernest Rutherford

#22. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#23. The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.

Ernest Rutherford

#24. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#25. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#26. An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

Ernest Rutherford

#27. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back to hit you.

Ernest Rutherford

#28. I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.

Ernest Rutherford

#29. The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't.

Ernest Rutherford

#30. A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.

Ernest Rutherford

#31. All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.

Ernest Rutherford

#32. The more physics you have the less engineering you need.

Ernest Rutherford

#33. The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.

Ernest Rutherford

#34. The great object is to find the theory of the matter [of X-rays] before anyone else, for nearly every professor in Europe is now on the warpath.

Ernest Rutherford

#35. We are rather like children, who must take a watch to pieces to see how it works.

Ernest Rutherford

#36. Gentlemen, now you will see that now you see nothing. And why you see nothing you will see presently.

Ernest Rutherford

#37. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#38. Now I know what the atom looks like.

Ernest Rutherford

#39. 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.

Ernest Rutherford

#40. We haven't got the money, so we'll have to think

Ernest Rutherford

#41. If your experiment needs a statistician, you need a better experiment.

Ernest Rutherford

#42. You know, I am sorry for the poor fellows that haven't got labs to work in.

Ernest Rutherford

#43. All scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science.

Ernest Rutherford

#44. All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

Ernest Rutherford