Manchester University remembers Rutherford to this day: the buildings he worked in are still standing, and his picture graces several other buildings as a reminder that you don't have to be Cambridge to do science. One of his laboratories is so radioactive that to this day that corner of the building is sealed off, making finding your lecture theatre quite difficult. I've heard one academic respond to students complaining about the detour say "you should email Professor Rutherford about it".
As a Pole I want to thank you that at least in the begining you name Marii by her full surname Skłodowska-Curie and no as just Curie or as many peoples even in Poland say Curie-Skłodowska, cause Skłodowska was her first (Polish) surname and Curie was taken from her French husband. Also I want to thanks for that in so short material you mention that she was Polish. Btw im starting to be your fan, I found your Chanel yesterday and starter subscribing after episode of Nicola Tesla whitch was fantastic! For now I can assume that your materials are very thoroughly checked. You have my respect. P.s. sorry for my english.
These videos are really incredible. Here we have Rutherford whose circumstances could easily askew him towards a different path. It's frightening to imagine all the discoveries we would have never known without his brilliance. I feel so genuinely happy he had enough perseverance to face all that life threw at him, and of course also extremely thankful to all those who helped him.
"It's frightening to imagine all the discoveries we would have never known without his brilliance." It's frightening to imagine these discoveries would not have eventually been made by other researchers.
In the 1980s I taught electronics technology in what is now called Ferris State University , Big Rapids, Michigan. I wanted to bring some of the history of the pioneers into the students awareness. I never did have time to do the research. Your work fills what I had in mind and overflows the pot. Thanks. I am watching the playlist for several hours today as I do the preparation for an unpleasant medical procedure tomorrow. Thanks also for giving me something better to think about.
Great biography. Rutherford is one of my two favorite scientists. The other is James Clerk Maxwell. May I say that your programs surpass about 98.72% of YT offerings, because you bring a quantity and depth of information few others can approach. Nice work.
Hi Kathy, being an electrical engineer and qualified as radiation specialist, I do like your video's a lot and do apreciate how you can explain the history behind all the knowledge we currently have in these field... In the past I did work, in Europe, for the AccuRay company based in Columbus OH (radioactivity based, industrial weight measurement and automation of these processes) and have my own electrical company since 2010 in this and other fields
These were mind-spinning times! Your accounts of the history of the discovery of radioactivity, the atoms and sub-atomic particles are making me relive the giddy times of when I first discovered the subject when reading physics as a 15 year old.
As a physics teacher, I can confirm that this is the best resource I've ever had to inspire my students. I was raised on Asimov's guide to the physical sciences and this is every bit as invigorating for me and helps me connect the science discovery pathway and the personalities involved for my students.
Lucky to be raised on such a great book! School science is usually just memorising facts and formulas without learning the history which is a shame as it shows you how real scientists think and work, not to mention the role of serendipity. It also captures the feeling of excitement and discovery
Thank you, Kathy. You are a wonderful teacher! Your ability to make all of your topics very interesting and easily understood is truly enjoyable. Looking forward to more…
Lord Rutherford is a New Zealand national hero. His image is immortalised on New Zealand's one hundred dollar bank note. Many thanks Kathy for your biography on one of our greatest New Zealanders.
You have every reason to be proud of Rutherford. I’m so glad you feel like I did him justice in this little video (there is a part two as well and eventually someday I have to do a part three).
Kathy thanks for your great videos and your infectious enthusiasm for science. Heres hoping some youngsters will study sciences because of your channel. Keep up the good work! George E Rutherford.
Radon is a plague in Eastern Pennsylvania as it occurs naturally in the soil in some areas. This was discovered by accident when a power company employee set off detectors ENTERING a nuclear facility. That is, a safety protocol designed to detect contamination INSIDE a nuclear plant revealed that the employee had been contaminated at his own home. It was accumulating in the employee's basement by seeping through walls. Now it is standard practice to have a radon test done as a condition of home sale - an expensive but necessary nuisance. Thanks for this great series of science history lessons.
By mentioning John Townsend without actually saying why (I'm guessing you had to trim the video), I needed to lookup John Sealy Townsend, to workout why ( "Townsend discharge" AKA "avalanche multiplication" ), so no Geiger-Müller tube without their contribution. And also Scintillation counters which use photomultiplier tubes that rely on avalanche multiplication to function. Great video as always, thank you.
Kathy- I love your episodes! Your new title, “The Lightning Tamers”, reminds me of one of my favorite books, “Dealers of Lightning- XEROX PARC and the dawn of the computer age”. At some point in the book I believe author Michael Hiltzik writes ‘lightning flew from their fingertips’ or something similar denoting how ideas flew around the lab. I approve of your new title and look forward to each new episode
Good stuff, as always. So much physics came out of Rutherford's journey... I love the way the names for all these new discoveries are just thrown off as side effects - alpha, beta - but are now universal words knon far beyondthe science community. My fave here is isotope, coined by one of Soddy's friends, Margaret Todd - not just a woman with influence in science, but a professional physician and gay to boot. That's quite the CV for those times... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Todd_(doctor)
proudsnowtiger I totally was blown away by Rutherford! Just endless accomplishments. And it also is totally stunning to just read people nonchalantly creating the current names for scientific phenomenon. Like when Ben Franklin just said (basically) let’s call them positive and negative charges! Love the story about Margaret Todd, thanks for the link.
The diagrams you used in this video are also in Rutherford's book, Radioactive Transformations, published in 1906 and based upon his 1905 Silliman Foundation lectures at Yale. I keep a copy of the book by my bedside. On pp 170-171, The violent disturbance in the atom resulting in the expulsion of an (alpha) particle may cause an actual breaking up of the main atom into two parts, and thus give rise to an equal number of atoms of different atomic weights in addition to the alpha particle. Thus Rutherford predicted atomic fission in 1905, years before he personally discovered the atomic nucleus, and thirty-three years before Hahn et al. discovered and named fission. Of course an alpha particle is not a neutron, but I still do not understand how so many scientists missed discovering fission for so long after Rutherford told them to look for it. What a story science makes.
Hopelessand Forlorn I cannot get over how amazing and prescient Rutherford was. 10-15 papers a year and all revolutionary year after year. Just amazing. He’s one of my favorites
The only physics historian that I used to watch was from the University of Southern California who had 52 half hour lectures put together by Dr. David Goodstein, his wife (also with a PhD), and many others. Both Goodstein and this new discovery of these videos are helping to make my life complete! (Just kidding on the "life completeness" statement.)
Kathy, I believe Sir Earnest was insulting stamp collectors. They got him back ! His commemorative stamp has head as the nucleus. He is surrounded by orbiting, or is it oscillating electrons.
bodgertime well, he was definitely insulting stamp collectors the bigger question was whether he was insulting chemists and biologists or theoretical physicists. I’m glad that the stamp collectors got their revenge (and I say this as a huge Rutherford fan)
As a physicist (retired) and someone who was a stamp and coin collector in my childhood, I firmly believe that the primary insult was aimed at chemists and more especially biologists. Put another way, stamp collecting, chemistry and biology are perfectly fine as hobbies, but not as serious professions.
I'm glad to see she quickly accumulared so many subscribers . These physicits should not forgotten? EVERY one was a real person. Yes, I like hearing about their physics, also!
As a New Zealander, my favourite quote from Rutherford is what he said to Russian scientist Kapitsa, ca.1921: 'The laboratory is no place to disseminate communist propaganda.'
Very interesting. See the situation is following. I’m down with covid. It hit harder than expected. The feeling is of utter uselessness. However with your videos I learned so much ! I wasn’t without knowledge, electronics is my profession. Still the interconnections between all the people involved in this history, the intrigue, the injustice in many cases, I had no knowledge of that. Thanks. You make my useless episode worthwhile.
I looked into that quote and I think that what Rutherford was saying was that all science is either physical or stamp collecting. Because Rutherford had great respect for chemists and biologists and geologists but he hated theoretical physicists (except for Niels Bohr). Which means any theoretical physicist who goes around quoting this is playing themselves
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics My comment is something else though. A part of Biology today is closely related to solid state physics. But the frustration is that biology is still miles away from becoming that good. Nah, not theory, I'm talking about experiment. I don't know if in my lifetime Biology will ever become rigorous and precise like physics.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics : I saw this reference. also on your website. I have to say that for Bernal’s speculation (that by “Physics”, Rutherford meant “Gadgeteering”), there is no evidence whatsoever. To be sure, Bernal was an excellent scientist and wonderful writer, but his credibility was seriously dented by ill-advised political shilling for the likes of Lysenko. Furthermore, the analogy Bernal draws is very far from clear. Reading the context from "The Social Function of Science", it is hard to see how Bernal goes from a physicists’ quasi-artistic appreciation of his field to ‘gadgeteering’. I’d add that the most egregious examples in recent decades of such a mindset would surely include the casual dismissal by Luis Alvarez of those (mostly palaentologists and geologists) who criticised his declaration that the K-T extinction event was likely due to asteroid impact. This attitude of physicists, in my experience, comes largely from their complete mastery of mathematical modelling. I'll add something to this effect to the comments on your website also.
There is a field called “biophysics”, isn’t there, which applies physical principles to living organisms. Like why you can’t have giant insects on Earth -- one reason is gravity versus the strength of their exoskeletons, another reason is a limitation of the way they breathe (which, interestingly was less of a limitation during a certain period in the deep past when the O₂ content of the atmosphere was something like 30%). Computer science and information theory are also now getting into the act, being embraced by physicists and other scientists. For example, when you look at the human optic nerve, its information bandwidth is nowhere near enough to transmit the gigapixels per second that the human retina is capturing. Therefore, there is already filtering going on, before the image ever reaches your brain.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 : Yes. The professor of Biophysics at my alma mater, years ago, was Charles Miles. It applies physics and strength of materials considerations to e.g. the skeletal response to trauma. But the field is very new. In particular, your insect breathing example involves Graham's law (transport speed of oxygen is much faster than carbon dioxide via spiracles, going as the reciprocal square root of the ratio of their molecular masses, which compromises pressure gradients and therefore re-oxygenation of arthropod blood). That law dates back a couple of centuries, before 'Physics' was widely in use, let alone 'Biophysics'. As far as Graham was concerned, it was all Natural Philosophy.
Ty, your videos are amazing, I really enjoy them, making topics crystal clear. I must apologize cause I have a mental block preventing me from learning math, and never been able to earn enough to live, just in the last ten years and that's so I can aford a basement to live in so I don't have any money I lost a chance to take a course at MIT this week cause I don't have the money but thanks to people like you I do have to give up trying to learn so ty I really live you videos
You have nothing to apologize for and I’m so glad you enjoy and learn from my channel. Don’t put yourself down for struggling with math - we all struggle with something and remember how influential and brilliant Faraday was with no math. If you feel like helping me out with out hurting your bank account it would be a great advantage if you mentioned me on social media or tell a friend of me. ❤️
That is fantastic! I think I said it up to be open so that if you feel like adding subtitles in Portuguese you can and then anyone who eats Portuguese can read it. Please email me at kathylovesphysicsATgmail.com if I can get the script or help in anyway.
Three actually and one if them didn't go to the same school! Rutherford, Maurice Wilkins (for his contribution to the unravelling of DNA) and McDiarmid.
I've had the motto "We haven't got the money, so we've got to think!" on my wall for years. It's often been a great help. Haven't got the money for a powerfull microscope/telescope/spectrometer/whatever? Then think about how to solve the problem with a cheaper instrument and some cleverness to compensate!
Im definately not an expert (but I am a Kiwi)... Maori.... Instead of saying May-Ori... Try saying Mouldy (As in mouldy bread) then try and soften the "D" a little, merging it into an "R"... You can actually get away with just saying Mouldy and you will impress New Zealanders far more than saying Mayoree (Or Mau-ree)... basically we roll the 'R' so it sounds a little like a D. (Try sticking the tip of your tongue to the top of your mouth just behind your teeth as you say the "ree" bit.) It's sort of fair to say Rutherford grew up in a nowhere place... If you look at Havelock - South Island - New Zealand, it is not much bigger than it was over 100 years ago... My most favourite museum is there (although it got upgraded a few years ago... Imagine an old church with sections enclosed in a chicken with fence full of objects tightly grouped together... You could go there 2 days in a row and still not see everything. Go to New Zealand's top museum 'Te Papa' and its huge... and seemingly empty... and you go back months later and won't find anything you missed!. Clutter can be so good.
Always loved the stories around physics discoveries and physicists eccentricities, not so much the physics itself, no wonder I dropped out second year. Too broke to donate so there's my like and comment.
That was great Kathy. I would like to ask you two aspects of the experiment: 1. I dont get how you can measure radiation with a circuit (electricity) 2. How exactly he came up with those conclusions? (5:40-5:55) I know what i´m asking might seem very basic but i dont know much about physics. Thanks for your time.
I am not sure what you are asking me for #2 (could you write a separate comment clarifying) but I can answer your first question. So, radioactive materials emit a radioactive gas that is slightly conductive, so if they put a charge across plates and then added a radioactive material, some of the charge could leak through the conductive gas and the more radioactive material you had, the more current you would get. I also described this in my video about Marie Curie.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Thanks for your response Kathy. Let me clarify a bit my question number two: what i dont get is how he knew that there were towo types of radiation (alfa and beta) by perfoming the experiment.
@@camilorivera4685 Rutherford was able to use a simple electroscope to measure the rate of ionization of air molecules in the vicinity of radioactive materials. He found that paper or thin metal foils placed between the source and the electroscope greatly decreased the discharge close to the source, but seemed to have little effect on the rate at slightly greater distances. He concluded that two type of radiation were present: heavy, slow-moving particles that could be easily blocked (alpha), and lighter, faster moving particles that were not so affected by blocking material (beta). Gamma rays were later differentiated by similar methods.
Camilo Rivera he saw that the radiation would be reduced quickly by sheets of metal in the way but then after a while, the radiation level seemed basically constant. He therefore decided that their were at least 2 types of radiation, one that was blacked by thin metal sheets and one that wasn’t.
I don’t think radon is conductive. The answer should be that radioactivity consists in the emission of highly energetic particles, capable of ionizing the atoms of the air. This turns the normally insulating air into a conductor, and a current flows if you set up a voltage difference across the gap.
Rutherford is the one who really got me interested in science when I was young. I think it was a picture in a book of that famous experiment that was not covered in this video. He also seems like he was just an all around cool dude.
When he learned that he was excepted to the University, he is reputed to have thrown down the hole, where he was caring for potatoes, and cry out “I will never have to Farm potatoes again”. I wonder if there is a connection between potatoe farming and success in scientific design. Philo Farnsworth also conceived of television or farming potatoes.
Your clarity is a wonder in times of empires collapse. Truly, and you have beautiful expressive eyes. But, don't ask for money, because there isn't any
Excellent, but I noticed a problem. I only mention this because I consider it virtually important that information on TH-cam should be accurate especially regarding Science (so much of it is rubbish). In this video you mentioned that Marie Curie noted that Thorium was radioactive, yet, in the video about Marie Curie, you said it was Thallium. I don't think Thallium is radioactive. You need to correct this.
The term "half life" has been in use so long, it will probably not be changed, but according to my personal opinion, it would be smarter to talk about the time to reduce the radiation to one divided by Euler's number, instead of one divided by two. However, this does not change anything about the physics.
The emotional intelligence of Mary Newton is understated here, the woman who chose to encourage Rutherford could have just as easily pined for his more immediate hand in marriage. Then she married that huge mind, which suggests her tolerance for a big head is also remarkable. As for stamp collecting, religion is considered worthless by the scientific machine. Yet science has concluded with wild assumptions more fantastic than those of religion, based on what I believe to be the interpretation of the Bernard comment about stamp collecting. The stamp collecting of science is important. Each tidbit of fact established through experiment, observation or even theorizing is like a pixel in a video. Some pixels are sometimes placed in the picture erroneously to later be removed or repositioned. The number of pixels in science is great, but the video is nowhere complete. Rutherford was interested in accurate pictures created using established means, disdainful of thought experiment and imagination as contributors of pixels to the video. Likewise, the assembly of Rutherford's pixels into fantastic beliefs about the origins of the universe are a fanciful theocracy akin to the Roman mythology that assembled a new belief system each time a new city was conquered, the local god being written into the story of the great Pantheon. It is considered a great heresy to question the religious belief of the big bang theory derived from Rutherford's accurate pixel of radioactive decay. The organization of our pixel collection into a supposed ready-to-watch full feature-length video is a modern example of stamp collecting. I feel that Rutherford and Mary would disapprove.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics actually Rontgen called them X rays as he did not know where the rays came from.but they enabled him to see the bones in his own hand .
Interesting but I thought he worked at the Canterbury University in Christchurch New Zealand before he went over seas???.. His Lab there was recently restored as an exhibit....Thanks Laurie, Tokoroa, New Zealand...
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Love your work. Canterbury is my Alma Mater. Little bit of background re Rutherford's attitude to female academics. Canterbury College was founded in 1873 and staffed by British Professors. The Science College was led by a very progressive Professor Bickerton. It admitted women from its first day. Helen Connon became in 1891 the first female honours graduate in the British Empire. This was 9 years before Rutherford enrolled as an undergraduate so he was already well acquainted with women in academia before he emigrated from his homeland.
Ernest Rutherford who fired alpha particles at a piece of thin gold foil and because he recorded radiation 'bouncing off' the foil in different directions he concluded every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated. Yet Rutherford never proved the existence of the atom in the gold foil. It was all in his imagination.
![Alpha Beta Gamma: History of Radioactivity [CC]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-G_CtD2UnAc/mqdefault.jpg)
Manchester University remembers Rutherford to this day: the buildings he worked in are still standing, and his picture graces several other buildings as a reminder that you don't have to be Cambridge to do science. One of his laboratories is so radioactive that to this day that corner of the building is sealed off, making finding your lecture theatre quite difficult. I've heard one academic respond to students complaining about the detour say "you should email Professor Rutherford about it".
As a Pole I want to thank you that at least in the begining you name Marii by her full surname Skłodowska-Curie and no as just Curie or as many peoples even in Poland say Curie-Skłodowska, cause Skłodowska was her first (Polish) surname and Curie was taken from her French husband. Also I want to thanks for that in so short material you mention that she was Polish.
Btw im starting to be your fan, I found your Chanel yesterday and starter subscribing after episode of Nicola Tesla whitch was fantastic! For now I can assume that your materials are very thoroughly checked. You have my respect.
P.s. sorry for my english.
I was born and raised in Oklahoma, and I am sorry for my english to.
These videos are really incredible. Here we have Rutherford whose circumstances could easily askew him towards a different path. It's frightening to imagine all the discoveries we would have never known without his brilliance. I feel so genuinely happy he had enough perseverance to face all that life threw at him, and of course also extremely thankful to all those who helped him.
Rutherford is one of my all time favorites. I’m hoping I can convince some New Zealanders to have me go there and talk about how great he is.
"It's frightening to imagine all the discoveries we would have never known without his brilliance."
It's frightening to imagine these discoveries would not have eventually been made by other researchers.
In the 1980s I taught electronics technology in what is now called Ferris State University , Big Rapids, Michigan. I wanted to bring some of the history of the pioneers into the students awareness. I never did have time to do the research. Your work fills what I had in mind and overflows the pot. Thanks. I am watching the playlist for several hours today as I do the preparation for an unpleasant medical procedure tomorrow. Thanks also for giving me something better to think about.
Great biography. Rutherford is one of my two favorite scientists. The other is James Clerk Maxwell. May I say that your programs surpass about 98.72% of YT offerings, because you bring a quantity and depth of information few others can approach. Nice work.
Rutherford is one of my favorite scientists too (by the way, did you see my video on Maxwell?). Glad you liked it.
What is YT?
Seriously? I will assume you aren't poking fun and tell you it's You Tube.
Hi Kathy, being an electrical engineer and qualified as radiation specialist, I do like your video's a lot and do apreciate how you can explain the history behind all the knowledge we currently have in these field... In the past I did work, in Europe, for the AccuRay company based in Columbus OH (radioactivity based, industrial weight measurement and automation of these processes) and have my own electrical company since 2010 in this and other fields
These were mind-spinning times! Your accounts of the history of the discovery of radioactivity, the atoms and sub-atomic particles are making me relive the giddy times of when I first discovered the subject when reading physics as a 15 year old.
As a physics teacher, I can confirm that this is the best resource I've ever had to inspire my students. I was raised on Asimov's guide to the physical sciences and this is every bit as invigorating for me and helps me connect the science discovery pathway and the personalities involved for my students.
Lucky to be raised on such a great book! School science is usually just memorising facts and formulas without learning the history which is a shame as it shows you how real scientists think and work, not to mention the role of serendipity. It also captures the feeling of excitement and discovery
I love your enthusiasm for the history of physics!
Thanks
Thank you, Kathy. You are a wonderful teacher! Your ability to make all of your topics very interesting and easily understood is truly enjoyable. Looking forward to more…
“Ready?” Yep. “Let’s GO!” Ha, Yes!
Love this channel.
Lord Rutherford is a New Zealand national hero.
His image is immortalised on New Zealand's one
hundred dollar bank note. Many thanks Kathy for
your biography on one of our greatest New Zealanders.
You have every reason to be proud of Rutherford. I’m so glad you feel like I did him justice in this little video (there is a part two as well and eventually someday I have to do a part three).
@Kathy Loves Physics & History You are a great teacher and master of the video/media resources. I love all your lessons. They are mesmerizing!
Good job Kathy, keep them coming :-)
Eddie Hanley thanks Eddie, will do
Kathy thanks for your great videos and your infectious enthusiasm for science. Heres hoping some youngsters will study sciences because of your channel.
Keep up the good work! George E Rutherford.
wow... simply breathtaking. Thanks Katty
Cool show. I am a physics fan retired from Fermilab. Excellent.
SovietRefusnik1 Golem so glad you liked it
Radon is a plague in Eastern Pennsylvania as it occurs naturally in the soil in some areas. This was discovered by accident when a power company employee set off detectors ENTERING a nuclear facility. That is, a safety protocol designed to detect contamination INSIDE a nuclear plant revealed that the employee had been contaminated at his own home. It was accumulating in the employee's basement by seeping through walls.
Now it is standard practice to have a radon test done as a condition of home sale - an expensive but necessary nuisance.
Thanks for this great series of science history lessons.
Kathy. Thanks for your hard work and your fascinating videos.
By mentioning John Townsend without actually saying why (I'm guessing you had to trim the video), I needed to lookup John Sealy Townsend, to workout why ( "Townsend discharge" AKA "avalanche multiplication" ), so no Geiger-Müller tube without their contribution. And also Scintillation counters which use photomultiplier tubes that rely on avalanche multiplication to function. Great video as always, thank you.
Kathy- I love your episodes! Your new title, “The Lightning Tamers”, reminds me of one of my favorite books, “Dealers of Lightning- XEROX PARC and the dawn of the computer age”. At some point in the book I believe author Michael Hiltzik writes ‘lightning flew from their fingertips’ or something similar denoting how ideas flew around the lab. I approve of your new title and look forward to each new episode
I have discovered your outstanding videos. Outstanding work! Thanks from a retired EE.
Glad you like them
Good stuff, as always. So much physics came out of Rutherford's journey... I love the way the names for all these new discoveries are just thrown off as side effects - alpha, beta - but are now universal words knon far beyondthe science community. My fave here is isotope, coined by one of Soddy's friends, Margaret Todd - not just a woman with influence in science, but a professional physician and gay to boot. That's quite the CV for those times... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Todd_(doctor)
proudsnowtiger I totally was blown away by Rutherford! Just endless accomplishments. And it also is totally stunning to just read people nonchalantly creating the current names for scientific phenomenon. Like when Ben Franklin just said (basically) let’s call them positive and negative charges! Love the story about Margaret Todd, thanks for the link.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics good luck on the
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Have read that Ben also coined "battery" - relating to his Leyden jar arrangement. *Most* happy to have found your videos. 🙂
Excellent video! I’m glad I found this channel
The diagrams you used in this video are also in Rutherford's book, Radioactive Transformations, published in 1906 and based upon his 1905 Silliman Foundation lectures at Yale. I keep a copy of the book by my bedside. On pp 170-171,
The violent disturbance in the atom resulting in the expulsion of an (alpha) particle may cause an actual breaking up of the main atom into two parts, and thus give rise to an equal number of atoms of different atomic weights in addition to the alpha particle.
Thus Rutherford predicted atomic fission in 1905, years before he personally discovered the atomic nucleus, and thirty-three years before Hahn et al. discovered and named fission. Of course an alpha particle is not a neutron, but I still do not understand how so many scientists missed discovering fission for so long after Rutherford told them to look for it. What a story science makes.
Hopelessand Forlorn I cannot get over how amazing and prescient Rutherford was. 10-15 papers a year and all revolutionary year after year. Just amazing. He’s one of my favorites
What a joy to watch. Really well explained.
Simon Strandgaard glad u liked it. I found Rutherford to be surprisingly delightful.
Enjoyed your video very much ! Rutherford is one of my hero and his life story is remarkable.
Who doesn’t love Ern?
Thank you for doing the biographical work that some of us are too lazy to do! Keep it up Kathy!
The only physics historian that I used to watch was from the University of Southern California who had 52 half hour lectures put together by Dr. David Goodstein, his wife (also with a PhD), and many others. Both Goodstein and this new discovery of these videos are helping to make my life complete! (Just kidding on the "life completeness" statement.)
Yours is undoubtedly the best infotainment channel. Thanks. I love it.
I love that term: infotainment did you make it up?
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics No ma’m , I am not all that creative. It is a term commonly used on social media in India.
Kathy, I believe Sir Earnest was insulting stamp collectors. They got him back ! His commemorative stamp has head as the nucleus. He is surrounded by orbiting, or is it oscillating electrons.
bodgertime well, he was definitely insulting stamp collectors the bigger question was whether he was insulting chemists and biologists or theoretical physicists. I’m glad that the stamp collectors got their revenge (and I say this as a huge Rutherford fan)
As a physicist (retired) and someone who was a stamp and coin collector in my childhood, I firmly believe that the primary insult was aimed at chemists and more especially biologists.
Put another way, stamp collecting, chemistry and biology are perfectly fine as hobbies, but not as serious professions.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics The way I heard it, that was why his Nobel was awarded for chemistry rather than physics. 🙂
Your lectures are very fascinating, you are wonderful, full of energy and with a very broad knowledge and of course beautiful.
Thanks Kathy. Glad i found your channel. Very, very interisting. Bye from Chile
I'm glad to see she quickly accumulared so many subscribers .
These physicits should not forgotten?
EVERY one was a real person.
Yes, I like hearing about their physics, also!
Amazing, Kathy.
Another good one !
Wouldnt be the same with a computer voice or another person for that matter.
Good stuff.
Thanks Kathy, Another Great bit if History.
Your video really helps brings the history alive, thanks
I'm just now discovering you in January of 2022. You do a great job!
You pasion for these videos really impress me well done
Thanks
I love your videos. I wish Physics would be taught this way. I would have found it much more interesting when I was younger.
As a New Zealander, my favourite quote from Rutherford is what he said to Russian scientist Kapitsa, ca.1921: 'The laboratory is no place to disseminate communist propaganda.'
Very interesting.
See the situation is following. I’m down with covid. It hit harder than expected. The feeling is of utter uselessness. However with your videos I learned so much ! I wasn’t without knowledge, electronics is my profession. Still the interconnections between all the people involved in this history, the intrigue, the injustice in many cases, I had no knowledge of that. Thanks. You make my useless episode worthwhile.
I hope you have recovered satisfactorily. Nice words, and your English is very good; also, I trust Kathy as well.
Marco, I hope you’re fully recovered and I’m glad I could help you through this miserable episode feel a little bit more productive.
4:32 Marie } thanks for the physics' , Kathy
These wonderful historic anecdotes should be made into short (or Long) theatrical films.
Well done, Kathy !!
What a great video- I am now a big fan of rutherford for advocating for women in general and for hiring in his lab.
As an engineer w basic science .. it’s great to hear the back stories of its development
All science is either physics or stamp collection. I'm a biologist and I approve this message.
I looked into that quote and I think that what Rutherford was saying was that all science is either physical or stamp collecting. Because Rutherford had great respect for chemists and biologists and geologists but he hated theoretical physicists (except for Niels Bohr). Which means any theoretical physicist who goes around quoting this is playing themselves
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics My comment is something else though. A part of Biology today is closely related to solid state physics. But the frustration is that biology is still miles away from becoming that good. Nah, not theory, I'm talking about experiment. I don't know if in my lifetime Biology will ever become rigorous and precise like physics.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics :
I saw this reference. also on your website. I have to say that for Bernal’s speculation (that by “Physics”, Rutherford meant “Gadgeteering”), there is no evidence whatsoever.
To be sure, Bernal was an excellent scientist and wonderful writer, but his credibility was seriously dented by ill-advised political shilling for the likes of Lysenko. Furthermore, the analogy Bernal draws is very far from clear. Reading the context from "The Social Function of Science", it is hard to see how Bernal goes from a physicists’ quasi-artistic appreciation of his field to ‘gadgeteering’.
I’d add that the most egregious examples in recent decades of such a mindset would surely include the casual dismissal by Luis Alvarez of those (mostly palaentologists and geologists) who criticised his declaration that the K-T extinction event was likely due to asteroid impact.
This attitude of physicists, in my experience, comes largely from their complete mastery of mathematical modelling. I'll add something to this effect to the comments on your website also.
There is a field called “biophysics”, isn’t there, which applies physical principles to living organisms. Like why you can’t have giant insects on Earth -- one reason is gravity versus the strength of their exoskeletons, another reason is a limitation of the way they breathe (which, interestingly was less of a limitation during a certain period in the deep past when the O₂ content of the atmosphere was something like 30%).
Computer science and information theory are also now getting into the act, being embraced by physicists and other scientists. For example, when you look at the human optic nerve, its information bandwidth is nowhere near enough to transmit the gigapixels per second that the human retina is capturing. Therefore, there is already filtering going on, before the image ever reaches your brain.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 : Yes. The professor of Biophysics at my alma mater, years ago, was Charles Miles. It applies physics and strength of materials considerations to e.g. the skeletal response to trauma.
But the field is very new. In particular, your insect breathing example involves Graham's law (transport speed of oxygen is much faster than carbon dioxide via spiracles, going as the reciprocal square root of the ratio of their molecular masses, which compromises pressure gradients and therefore re-oxygenation of arthropod blood).
That law dates back a couple of centuries, before 'Physics' was widely in use, let alone 'Biophysics'. As far as Graham was concerned, it was all Natural Philosophy.
Ty, your videos are amazing, I really enjoy them, making topics crystal clear. I must apologize cause I have a mental block preventing me from learning math, and never been able to earn enough to live, just in the last ten years and that's so I can aford a basement to live in so I don't have any money I lost a chance to take a course at MIT this week cause I don't have the money but thanks to people like you I do have to give up trying to learn so ty I really live you videos
You have nothing to apologize for and I’m so glad you enjoy and learn from my channel. Don’t put yourself down for struggling with math - we all struggle with something and remember how influential and brilliant Faraday was with no math.
If you feel like helping me out with out hurting your bank account it would be a great advantage if you mentioned me on social media or tell a friend of me. ❤️
Everlasting thanks I love that
I'm going to use your videos in my Chemistry classes and History of Chemistry, as well; here in Brazil. By the way, our classes are in Portuguese.
That is fantastic! I think I said it up to be open so that if you feel like adding subtitles in Portuguese you can and then anyone who eats Portuguese can read it. Please email me at kathylovesphysicsATgmail.com if I can get the script or help in anyway.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics What does Portuguese taste like and do you eat it with a spoon or a fork?
Fun and educational. Thank you for a very informative video.
Fun fact: 🇳🇿 has produced two Nobel Prize winners so far, and they both went to the same primary school in Nelson.
Three actually and one if them didn't go to the same school! Rutherford, Maurice Wilkins (for his contribution to the unravelling of DNA) and McDiarmid.
My favorite Rutherford quote: "If you can't explain it to the woman who scrubs the laboratory floor then you don't understand it."
I've had the motto "We haven't got the money, so we've got to think!" on my wall for years. It's often been a great help. Haven't got the money for a powerfull microscope/telescope/spectrometer/whatever? Then think about how to solve the problem with a cheaper instrument and some cleverness to compensate!
Loved it , thank you so much!
'Sigh' the word heard many years ago in my English language prose and poetry books ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I love your content. Keep it up!
Well narrated
Im definately not an expert (but I am a Kiwi)...
Maori.... Instead of saying May-Ori... Try saying Mouldy (As in mouldy bread) then try and soften the "D" a little, merging it into an "R"...
You can actually get away with just saying Mouldy and you will impress New Zealanders far more than saying Mayoree (Or Mau-ree)...
basically we roll the 'R' so it sounds a little like a D. (Try sticking the tip of your tongue to the top of your mouth just behind your teeth as you say the "ree" bit.)
It's sort of fair to say Rutherford grew up in a nowhere place... If you look at Havelock - South Island - New Zealand, it is not much bigger than it was over 100 years ago...
My most favourite museum is there (although it got upgraded a few years ago... Imagine an old church with sections enclosed in a chicken with fence full of objects tightly grouped together... You could go there 2 days in a row and still not see everything.
Go to New Zealand's top museum 'Te Papa' and its huge... and seemingly empty... and you go back months later and won't find anything you missed!. Clutter can be so good.
Always loved the stories around physics discoveries and physicists eccentricities, not so much the physics itself, no wonder I dropped out second year.
Too broke to donate so there's my like and comment.
Thanks! Also, you can join my email list for free the link is in my about me page
Great video!
Thank you for such a great lesson!!!!
Glad you liked it!
That was great Kathy. I would like to ask you two aspects of the experiment:
1. I dont get how you can measure radiation with a circuit (electricity)
2. How exactly he came up with those conclusions? (5:40-5:55)
I know what i´m asking might seem very basic but i dont know much about physics.
Thanks for your time.
I am not sure what you are asking me for #2 (could you write a separate comment clarifying) but I can answer your first question. So, radioactive materials emit a radioactive gas that is slightly conductive, so if they put a charge across plates and then added a radioactive material, some of the charge could leak through the conductive gas and the more radioactive material you had, the more current you would get. I also described this in my video about Marie Curie.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Thanks for your response Kathy. Let me clarify a bit my question number two: what i dont get is how he knew that there were towo types of radiation (alfa and beta) by perfoming the experiment.
@@camilorivera4685 Rutherford was able to use a simple electroscope to measure the rate of ionization of air molecules in the vicinity of radioactive materials. He found that paper or thin metal foils placed between the source and the electroscope greatly decreased the discharge close to the source, but seemed to have little effect on the rate at slightly greater distances. He concluded that two type of radiation were present: heavy, slow-moving particles that could be easily blocked (alpha), and lighter, faster moving particles that were not so affected by blocking material (beta). Gamma rays were later differentiated by similar methods.
Camilo Rivera he saw that the radiation would be reduced quickly by sheets of metal in the way but then after a while, the radiation level seemed basically constant. He therefore decided that their were at least 2 types of radiation, one that was blacked by thin metal sheets and one that wasn’t.
I don’t think radon is conductive.
The answer should be that radioactivity consists in the emission of highly energetic particles, capable of ionizing the atoms of the air. This turns the normally insulating air into a conductor, and a current flows if you set up a voltage difference across the gap.
Thank you for this excellent video, and thank you for your excellent research and presentation from a new sub.
Peace
Thanks
Excellent video !!!!
Rutherford is the one who really got me interested in science when I was young.
I think it was a picture in a book of that famous experiment that was not covered in this video.
He also seems like he was just an all around cool dude.
Shawn Mulberry I totally love Rutherford. I could make 100 videos on him.
Amazing story as always..
Ernest Rutherford's original family home still stands at Brightwater, Nelson in New Zealand.
You are a teachers teacher. Bravo.
Excellent! Thank you!
When he learned that he was excepted to the University, he is reputed to have thrown down the hole, where he was caring for potatoes, and cry out “I will never have to Farm potatoes again”. I wonder if there is a connection between potatoe farming and success in scientific design. Philo Farnsworth also conceived of television or farming potatoes.
Good knowledge
Glad you liked it.
am I correct that a van few off the illustrations come from a book called the restless atom. My favourite book about this period.
Thank you. Love the history.
Great channel
I did my part Cathy.
What is it about the 19th century that produced so many brilliant minds
If you visit New Zealand you will find a memorial to Rutherford in Nelson. It's a circular outdoor mini-museum of sorts.
Damn, I was in Nelson a few years back and missed it. I did find the stinky yurt.
I wonder if Niels Bohr ever told Rutherford: "You are a New Zealander and I am a Zealander." Yep, Bohr was born on the Danish island called Zealand.
Thank you for good information and knowledge 🙏🙏🙏🙏 from Egypt ❤️❤️❤️👍
Your clarity is a wonder in times of empires collapse. Truly, and you have beautiful expressive eyes. But, don't ask for money, because there isn't any
The best part of these videos is when she says "What was going on?"
Excellent, but I noticed a problem. I only mention this because I consider it virtually important that information on TH-cam should be accurate especially regarding Science (so much of it is rubbish). In this video you mentioned that Marie Curie noted that Thorium was radioactive, yet, in the video about Marie Curie, you said it was Thallium. I don't think Thallium is radioactive. You need to correct this.
Can you do one for George Green: the green function?
The importance of being Ernest
12:33 "For Mike's sake, Soddy,
don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists. Make it transformation."
I mean, how is this not a movie?
Movies thrive on such things as photon torpedos, vibranium, and dinosaurs chasing down people. Facts are just too blase...
The term "half life" has been in use so long, it will probably not be changed, but according to my personal opinion, it would be smarter to talk about the time to reduce the radiation to one divided by Euler's number, instead of one divided by two. However, this does not change anything about the physics.
The emotional intelligence of Mary Newton is understated here, the woman who chose to encourage Rutherford could have just as easily pined for his more immediate hand in marriage. Then she married that huge mind, which suggests her tolerance for a big head is also remarkable.
As for stamp collecting, religion is considered worthless by the scientific machine. Yet science has concluded with wild assumptions more fantastic than those of religion, based on what I believe to be the interpretation of the Bernard comment about stamp collecting. The stamp collecting of science is important. Each tidbit of fact established through experiment, observation or even theorizing is like a pixel in a video. Some pixels are sometimes placed in the picture erroneously to later be removed or repositioned. The number of pixels in science is great, but the video is nowhere complete. Rutherford was interested in accurate pictures created using established means, disdainful of thought experiment and imagination as contributors of pixels to the video. Likewise, the assembly of Rutherford's pixels into fantastic beliefs about the origins of the universe are a fanciful theocracy akin to the Roman mythology that assembled a new belief system each time a new city was conquered, the local god being written into the story of the great Pantheon. It is considered a great heresy to question the religious belief of the big bang theory derived from Rutherford's accurate pixel of radioactive decay. The organization of our pixel collection into a supposed ready-to-watch full feature-length video is a modern example of stamp collecting. I feel that Rutherford and Mary would disapprove.
Immm rellllateeddd to ernest Rutherford
No WAY!!!!! I am so fascinated by him, one of my top 3 scientists of all time. How are you related to him? Any family stories?
Excellent!
What was the key for success of 19the century scientists and from where they found the key.
Christchurch, Canterbury,New Zealand.
My home :)
Lucky you. I hear that New Zealand is incomparably beautiful. I hear you have a museum dedicated to Rutherford. Would love to see it someday.
Your videos are extraordinary..I almost completed watching all your videos..
Great work👍👍
How are you..???
Are you going to do more videos?
I am doing very well and I am working on my next video but I’m also working on finishing a book about the history of electricity so I am a bit slow.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics All the best👍😊
3:52 I suspect they were called “X-rays” because Anglophones couldn’t figure out how to pronounce “Röntgen” ...
Well, in our defense it is a very hard name to say and Roentgen actually called them x-rays
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics actually Rontgen called them X rays as he did not know where the rays came from.but they enabled him to see the bones in his own hand .
What a remarkable and attractive person. Not a bad scientist either.
Interesting but I thought he worked at the Canterbury University in Christchurch New Zealand before he went over seas???.. His Lab there was recently restored as an exhibit....Thanks Laurie, Tokoroa, New Zealand...
He went to college at Canterbury University. But then he went to graduate school (basically, they didn’t call it that) with JJ Thomson.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Love your work. Canterbury is my Alma Mater. Little bit of background re Rutherford's attitude to female academics. Canterbury College was founded in 1873 and staffed by British Professors. The Science College was led by a very progressive Professor Bickerton. It admitted women from its first day. Helen Connon became in 1891 the first female honours graduate in the British Empire. This was 9 years before Rutherford enrolled as an undergraduate so he was already well acquainted with women in academia before he emigrated from his homeland.
Thank you for good information and knowledge 🙏🙏🙏🙏 from india.
Ernest Rutherford who fired alpha particles at a piece of thin gold foil and because he recorded radiation 'bouncing off' the foil in different directions he concluded every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated.
Yet Rutherford never proved the existence of the atom in the gold foil. It was all in his imagination.
Hi if possible can u provide me the notes like If u have . I actually have to write the biography of rutherford . Hope u respond
Sure, shoot me an email and I will send you a word file. KathylovesphysicsATgmail.com
Actually I tried sending u an email but it says that the email I'd is invalid