Rutherford, Ernest death

Rutherford continued to do research until his death, but the proton was his last big discovery. It was not, however, his last big honor. In 1931, the New Zealand country boy was raised to the peerage with the official name of Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson. After his death six years later, he was awarded one last honor. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where he keeps company with Isaac Newton and a handful of other great British scientists. 

During the period since the first publication of this book in 1930 death has taken many of the pioneers of modem chemistry. Marie Curie became a victim of radium-the element of her own discovery. Frederick G. Banting returned from the first World War with the idea that he would try to conquer diabetes, and he did. He then lost his life in an airplane accident while in the service of Great Britain during the second World War. Death also took the great Joseph J. Thomson, discoverer of the electron, and his brilliant student, Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the proton. Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, two of the leading architects of the new nuclear age, are also no longer with us. 

Hans Geiger worked in Ernest Rutherford s laboratory manually and meticulously counting a-particle scintillations for the famous experiments that led to the discovery of the nucleus. Because of this work, he developed an a-particle detector. After World War I, Geiger developed the modern Geiger-Mueller counter and worked until his death to increase its speed and sensitivity. 

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