Ernest Rutherford with the two scientists who split the atom in the 1930s, John Cockcroft (left) and Ernest Walton. (NZ Herald Archive)
In this year, Ernest Rutherford became director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, one of the most important posts in the world of science.
But the year is memorable more for the third of his great scientific discoveries than his career advancement. He brought about the first artificial transmutation
of one element into another, transforming nitrogen into an isotope of oxygen.
One biographer remarked he had succeeded where the medieval alchemists - whose great quest was to turn lead into gold - had failed. But Rutherford was no alchemist; he was the father of modern nuclear physics and his great discoveries - on radioactivity, the structure of the atom and changing one element into another - cemented his reputation as one of the greatest scientists of his age, or any age.
For the third time - but not the last - we select him to be our New Zealander of the Year.
From the Herald archives:
'Rutherford's time bomb, NZ Herald online, 15 May 2004
