ERNEST RUTHERFORD

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1.

For the first time in history we have got more energy out of something than we put in … [but] …. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine.

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.

I am a great believer in the simplicity of things and as you probably know I am inclined to hang on to broad & simple ideas like grim death until evidence is too strong for my tenacity.

All scientific men will be delighted to extend their warmest congratulations to Tesla and to express their appreciation of his great contributions to science.

Don't let me catch anyone talking about the Universe in my department.

From the results so far obtained it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the long-range atoms arising from collision of alpha particles with nitrogen are not nitrogen atoms but probably atoms of hydrogen, or atoms of mass 2. If this be the case, we must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated under the intense forces developed in a close collision with a swift alpha particle, and that the hydrogen atom which is liberated formed a constituent part of the nitrogen nucleus.

I congratulate you both on a fine piece of work which I am sure will ultimately prove of importance. I am personally very much interested in your results... In the past I have tried a number of experiments... but without any success.

Now I know what the atom looks like.

[From uranium] there are present at least two distinct types of radiation one that is very readily absorbed, which will be termed for convenience the α radiation, and the other of a more penetrative character, which will be termed the β radiation.

The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.

The great object is to find the theory of the matter [of X-rays] before anyone else, for nearly every professor in Europe is now on the warpath.

We haven't got the money, so we've got to think.

I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.

A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.

The year 1896 ... marked the beginning of what has been aptly termed the heroic age of Physical Science. Never before in the history of physics has there been witnessed such a period of intense activity when discoveries of fundamental importance have followed one another with such bewildering rapidity.

An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.

When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.

I have to keep going, as there are always people on my track. I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race. The best sprinters in this road of investigation are Becquerel and the Curies.

That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.