Rutherford was one of my early heroes, and Wilson's biography of this great and lovable man has enlivened and enlarged, rather than debunked, my youthful image. Rutherford was the man who created the atomic age: a farmer's boy from New Zealand whose brilliance and Herculean energy brought him the Presidency of the Royal Society, a peerage, and honours from all over the world. Wilson goes a long way to tracing the mental paths and the passionate curiosity that led Rutherford to his great discoveries. He paints a picture of a towering, boisterous, stunningly able, outgoing, cheerful, irascible, good-natured, generous and compassionate man who delights above all in the pursuit of experimental physics and feels sorry 'for the poor chaps who haven't got labs to work in'.

LRB 19 April 1984 | PDF Download