Memories of Rutherford in Manchester

Abstract

WHEN I look back on the five years which I spent with Rutherford as a young physicist in Manchester, many delightful impressions spring to my mind. I see his quiet research room at the top of the physics building, under the roof, where his radium was kept, and in which so much well-known work on the emanation was carried out. But I also see the gloomy cellar in which he had fitted up his delicate apparatus for the study of the α-rays. Rutherford loved this room. One went down two steps and then heard from the darkness Rutherford's voice, reminding one that a hot-pipe crossed the room at head-level, and that one had to step over two water-pipes. Then, finally, in the feeble light, one saw the great man himself seated at his apparatus, and straightway he would recount in his own inimitable way the progress of his experiments, and point out the difficulties that had to be overcome.