Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS (30 August 187119 October 1937)

was a British-New Zealand chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics.[1] In early work he discovered the concept of radioactive half life, proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".[2] Rutherford performed his most famous work after he received this prize. In 1911, he postulated that atoms have their positive charge concentrated in a very small nucleus,[3] and thereby pioneered the Rutherford model, or planetary, model of the atom, through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering in his gold foil experiment. He is widely credited with first splitting the atom in 1917, and leading the first experiment to "split the nucleus" in a controlled manner by two students under his direction, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton in 1932. Ernest Rutherford was the son of James Rutherford, a farmer, and his wife Martha Thompson, originally from Hornchurch, Essex, England.[4] James had emigrated from Perth, Scotland, "to raise a little flax and a lot of children". Ernest was born at Spring Grove (now Brightwater), near Nelson, New Zealand. His first name was mistakenly spelled Earnest when his birth was registered.[5] He studied at Havelock School and then Nelson College and won a scholarship to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand where he was president of the debating society, among other things. After gaining his BA, MA and BSc, and doing two years of research at the forefront of electrical technology, in 1895 Rutherford travelled to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (18951898),[6] and he briefly held the world record for the distance over which electromagnetic waves could be detected. In 1898 Rutherford was appointed to the chair of physics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he did the work that gained him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. In 1900 he gained a DSc from the University of New Zealand. Also in 1900 he

married Mary Georgina Newton (18761945); they had one daughter, Eileen Mary (19011930), who married Ralph Fowler. In 1907 Rutherford moved to Britain to take the chair of physics at the University of Manchester. Homi J. Bhabha Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (30 October 1909 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist who played a major role in the development of the Indian atomic energy program and is considered to be the father of India's nuclear program. Bhabha was born into a prominent family, through which he was related to Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Homi K Bhabha and Dorab Tata. After receiving his early education at Bombay schools and at the Royal Institute of Science, he attended Caius College of Cambridge University to pursue studies in mechanical engineering. After taking mechanical engineering, he pursued studies under Paul Dirac to complete the Mathematics Tripos. Meanwhile, he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory while working towards his doctorate in theoretical physics under R. H. Fowler. During this time, he embarked on groundbreaking research into the absorption of cosmic rays and electron shower production. Afterward, he published a string of widely-accepted papers on his theories regarding cosmic ray showers. World War II broke out in September 1939 while Bhabha was vacationing in India. He chose to remain in India until the war ended. In the meantime, he accepted a position at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, headed by Nobel laureate C. V. Raman. He established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the institute, and began to work on the theory of the movement of point particles. In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, and the Atomic Energy Commission of India three years later. In the 1950s, Bhabha represented India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and served as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 1954. He later served as the member of the Indian Cabinet's Scientific Advisory Committee and set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research with Vikram Sarabhai. In January 1966, Bhabha died in a plane crash near

Mont Blanc, while heading to Vienna, Austria to attend a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee. Early life Bhabha received his early education at Bombay's Cathedral Grammar School, which became the Cathedral and John Connon School in 1922 after merging with the John Connon School, run by the city's Scottish Education Society. He entered Elphinstone College at age 15 after passing his Senior Cambridge Examination with Honours. He then attended the Royal Institute of Science until 1927 before joining Caius College of Cambridge University, the alma mater of his uncle Dorab Tata.His father and uncle Dorab planned for Bhabha to obtain an engineering degree from Cambridge and then return to India, where would join the Tata Iron and Steel Company in Jamshedpur. However, during his studies, Bhabha felt more of an interest in the field of mathematics, instead of engineering.