PHYSICISTS from New Zealand

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary New Zealander Physicists of all time. This list of famous New Zealander Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Ernest Rutherford (1871 - 1937)

With an HPI of 80.59, Ernest Rutherford is the most famous New Zealander Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 135 different languages on wikipedia.

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937), was a New Zealand physicist 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." He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada. Rutherford's discoveries include the concept of radioactive half-life, the radioactive element radon, and the differentiation and naming of alpha and beta radiation. Together with Thomas Royds, Rutherford is credited with proving that alpha radiation is composed of helium nuclei. In 1911, he theorized that atoms have their charge concentrated in a very small nucleus. This was done through his discovery and interpretation of Rutherford scattering during the gold foil experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, resulting in his conception of the Rutherford model of the atom. In 1917, he performed the first artificially-induced nuclear reaction by conducting experiments where nitrogen nuclei were bombarded with alpha particles. As a result, he discovered the emission of a subatomic particle which he initially called the "hydrogen atom", but later (more accurately) named the proton. He is also credited with developing the atomic numbering system alongside Henry Moseley. His other achievements include advancing the fields of radio communications and ultrasound technology. Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1919. Under his leadership, the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. In the same year, the first controlled experiment to split the nucleus was performed by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, working under his direction. In honour of his scientific advancements, Rutherford was recognised as a baron of the United Kingdom. After his death in 1937, he was buried in Westminster Abbey near Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. The chemical element rutherfordium (104Rf) was named after him in 1997.

2. Maurice Wilkins (1916 - 2004)

With an HPI of 66.08, Maurice Wilkins is the 2nd most famous New Zealander Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 67 different languages.

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins (15 December 1916 – 5 October 2004) was a New Zealand-born British biophysicist and Nobel laureate whose research spanned multiple areas of physics and biophysics, contributing to the scientific understanding of phosphorescence, isotope separation, optical microscopy, and X-ray diffraction. He is known for his work at King's College London on the structure of DNA. Wilkins' work on DNA falls into two distinct phases. The first was in 1948–1950, when his initial studies produced the first clear X-ray images of DNA, which he presented at a conference in Naples in 1951 attended by James Watson. During the second phase, 1951–52, Wilkins produced clear "B form" X-shaped images from squid sperm, images he sent to James Watson and Francis Crick, causing Watson to write "Wilkins... has obtained extremely excellent X-ray diffraction photographs" [of DNA]. In 1953, Wilkins' group coordinator Sir John Randall instructed Raymond Gosling to hand over to Wilkins a high-quality image of "B" form DNA (Photo 51), which Gosling had made in 1952, after which his supervisor Rosalind Franklin "put it aside" as she was leaving King's College London. Wilkins showed it to Watson. This image, along with the knowledge that Linus Pauling had proposed an incorrect structure of DNA, "mobilised" Watson and Crick to restart model building. With additional information from research reports of Wilkins and Franklin, obtained via Max Perutz, Watson and Crick correctly described the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953. Wilkins continued to test, verify, and make significant corrections to the Watson–Crick DNA model and to study the structure of RNA. Wilkins, Crick, and Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".