Rutherford Building and Museum - McGill University Physics Department

Here is where a keen kiwi might see an array of Lord Ernest Rutherford'sscientific equipment, in McGill University's Physics Department.

The New Zealand born scientist spent part of his career here, as Professor of Experimental Physics, apparently attracted in 1898 by the newly built facility, the MacDonald Physics Building. That now serves as a science library, nearby to McGill's 1977 Physics Building named the Ernest Rutherford Building.

The museum is housed in the Rutherford building alongside the 21st century action and activities, like the new McGill Nanotools Microfabrication Laboratory was completed in 2018, McGill is still a leader in cutting edge physics.

It was a private project, the biography of Rutherford, that sparked the collection which became the museum. Here is the University's description of the collection:

This Museum is under the custodianship of the Physics Department. The Rutherford Museum contains a collection of the actual apparatus used by Ernest Rutherford when he was Professor of Experimental Physics at McGill, 1898-1907. This apparatus enabled Rutherford to investigate the newly-discovered phenomenon of radioactivity, to establish the nature of the alpha rays emitted by radium and thorium, and to formulate the revolutionary theory of radioactive transformation for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1908. The Museum also includes some photographs, letters, documents, and other materials relating to Rutherford's work.

The apparatus displayed in the Rutherford Museum is (with one exception) home-made and simple in design and construction. However, the term 'simple' should not be confused with 'simplistic.' On the contrary, the concepts underlying the apparatus were highly sophisticated and enabled Rutherford to obtain direct answers to specific questions.

The period covered by this Museum was still within the age of 'Little Science.' A scientist would design the apparatus for an experiment and it would then be constructed in the machine shop. At the conclusion of the experiment the apparatus would be returned to the workshop, where it would be dismantled, since many of the components (such as brass plates, blocks of wax, glass tubing, etc.) could be re-used in later equipment. This was known as 'cannibalizing the apparatus.' This would normally have happened to Rutherford's apparatus, but for the foresight of his colleague Howard Barnes, who pointed out that Rutherford was a pioneer in a new field of science and, by 1900, was already world-famous: it would be a crime against posterity to destroy his apparatus. The equipment was therefore put away in a cupboard, where it remained, undisturbed, until the late 1930s.

After Rutherford's death, in 1937, his friend and former colleague, Arthur Stewart Eve, was asked by the Royal Society to write the "official" biography. Eve (who had retired to England) wrote to his former colleagues at McGill and requested them to take photographs of the apparatus for the book. This was done and three photos were included in Eve's book, published in 1939.⁽¹⁾ A more complete collection of photographs, together with brief descriptions of the apparatus, was published at about the same time by Dr. Ferdinand Terroux, a Lecturer (subsequently Professor) in Physics at McGill and a former graduate student at Cambridge under Rutherford.⁽²⁾ The apparatus was subsequently brought out of storage from time to time for inspection by visitors, and in 1950 Dr. Terroux made a formal proposal to Dr. Norman Shaw, the Chairman of the Physics Department, for the construction of a "Rutherford Museum and Conference Room."

Other locations on the Rutherford map are Foxhill School, Canterbury University, Victoria University, Cambridge and Manchester Universities and Westminster Abbey where he is buried next to Sir Issac Newton.

Image Credits: McGill University