2. Sir Ernest Marsden
• Date of Birth: February 19, 1889
• Date of Death: December 15, 1970
• “Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types
of matter are being continually produced. .... The conclusion is drawn that these
chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.”
• This is a quote from Ernest Rutherford
who worked with Marsden in al his discoveries
4. Family History
• Ancestry traced to Marsden’s and
Holden’s; oldest families in Darwen,
Lancashire
• He was the second of a family of 4 sons
and a daughter Hilda, the youngest
5. Education
• Attended Rishton Wesleyan School until age of ten
• Was transferred to Higher Grade School at Backburn because of his
advanced skills
• From there he won the an entrance scholarship to Queen
Elizabeth’s Grammar School
• From this school he won a Lancashire City Council Scholarship to
the University of Manchester
• Professor at the time Arthur Schuster resigned in 1907, from then
on Marsden was under Rutherford, becoming deeply interested in
radioactivity
6. Contributions
• Observed that a tiny fraction of alpha particles fired at a
thin gold foil were deflected straight back. Rutherford
used this result to determine a new structure of the atom,
with most of its mass concentrated in a minute central
nucleus.
• New Zealand's leading scientist, founded the
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR)
in 1926 and organized its research mainly in area of
agriculture, World War II worked on radar research and
1947 became scientific liaison officer in London
7. Awards and Accomplishments
• Fellowship in the Royal Society of London 1946,
president of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1947, the
Rutherford Memorial Lecture 1948, and knighthood
1958. The Marsden Fund for basic research in New
Zealand was set up in 1994
• 'The Marsden Merit Trophy' bears his name
