In 2005, we had a couple of things going for us. First, of course, we knew how the experiment was supposed to come out. They had been out there in the blue. We also had faster, stronger, and more reliable equipment to pull vacuums, greatly reducing the results contaminated by the odd air molecule or hydrogen atom. But we, and the world, now know the deadly dangers of radioactivity. Rutherford used to toss bits of radioactive material in his pocket and then, before dinner, into the top drawer of his desk at home. ...If we tried to use what they used, we couldn't all be in this room... We couldn't be in the building.
About This Quote
About Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford was a 19th-century New Zealand physicist and chemist. Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was a New Zealand physicist and chemist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nuclear physics" and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday." In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." Read more on Wikipedia →