# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/ernest-rutherford
# Generated: 2026-08-31T14:56:13.998Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/ernest-rutherford"
name: "Ernest Rutherford"
slug: "ernest-rutherford"
description: "He cracked the atom open. Rutherford proved the nucleus exists, named the proton, sorted alpha from beta radiation, won a Nobel in chemistry, and trained the lab that found the neutron — then got buried between Darwin and Newton."
tagline: "New Zealand physicist (1871–1937)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Ernest_Rutherford_LOC.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
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  isoCode: "NZ"
category:
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  slug: "scientists"
profileType:
  name: "Scientist"
  slug: "scientist"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1871-08-30"
deathDate: "1937-10-19"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
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  momentum:             1.403225806451613
  historical:           25.351656
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  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
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ranks:
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in New Zealand in 1871, Rutherford arrived at atomic physics when radioactivity was still unnamed vapour. By 1908 his work on radioactive decay and element disintegration earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Three years later he interpreted the gold foil scattering results from Geiger and Marsden and proposed that an atom's charge sits in a tiny, dense nucleus — overturning the diffuse-pudding model overnight. He brought Niels Bohr to his lab in 1912; together they sketched the orbital atom. In 1917 he fired alpha particles at nitrogen and knocked loose what he first called a hydrogen atom, then recognised as the proton — the first artificially induced nuclear reaction. He became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, and under him Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 and Cockcroft and Walton split the nucleus in controlled conditions the same year. He died in 1937 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Element 104 now carries his name.