Rutherford: Difference between revisions
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Rutherford's intellect was so strong that he would, in the long run, have accepted that judgment. But he would not have liked it. His estimate of his own powers was realistic, but if it erred at all, it did not err on the modest side. “There is no room for this particle in the atom as designed by me.” I once heard him assure a large audience. It was part of his nature that, stupendous as his work was, he should consider it lo per cent more so. It was also part of his nature that, quite without acting, he should behave constantly as though he were lo per cent larger than life. Worldly success? He loved every minute of it: flattery, titles, the company of the high official world. He said in a speech: “As I was standing in the drawing-room at Trinity, a clergyman came in. And I said to him: T'm Lord Rutherford.' And he said to me: T'm the Archbishop of York.' And I don't suppose either of us believed the other.” | Rutherford's intellect was so strong that he would, in the long run, have accepted that judgment. But he would not have liked it. His estimate of his own powers was realistic, but if it erred at all, it did not err on the modest side. “There is no room for this particle in the atom as designed by me.” I once heard him assure a large audience. It was part of his nature that, stupendous as his work was, he should consider it lo per cent more so. It was also part of his nature that, quite without acting, he should behave constantly as though he were lo per cent larger than life. Worldly success? He loved every minute of it: flattery, titles, the company of the high official world. He said in a speech: “As I was standing in the drawing-room at Trinity, a clergyman came in. And I said to him: T'm Lord Rutherford.' And he said to me: T'm the Archbishop of York.' And I don't suppose either of us believed the other.” | ||
He was a great man, a very great man, by any standards which we can apply. He was not subtle: but he was clever as well as creatively gifted, magnanimous (within the human limits) as well as hearty. He was also superbly and magnificently vain as well as wise — the combination is commoner than we think when we are young. He enjoyed a life of miraculous success. On the whole he | He was a great man, a very great man, by any standards which we can apply. He was not subtle: but he was clever as well as creatively gifted, magnanimous (within the human limits) as well as hearty. He was also superbly and magnificently vain as well as wise — the combination is commoner than we think when we are young. He enjoyed a life of miraculous success. On the whole he enjoyed his own personality. But I am sure that, even quite late in his life, he felt stabs of a sickening insecurity. | ||
Somewhere at the roots of that abundant and creative nature there was a painful, shrinking nerve. One has only to read his letters as a young man to discern it. There are passages of self-doubt which are not to be explained completely by a humble colonial childhood and youth. He was uncertain in secret, abnormally so for a young man of his gifts. He kept the secret as his personality flowered and hid it. But there was a mysterious diffidence behind it all. He hated the faintest suspicion of being patronized, even when he was a world figure. Archbishop Lang was once tactless enough to suggest that he supposed a famous scientist had no time for reading. Rutherford immediately felt that he was being regarded as an ignorant roughneck. He produced a formidable list of his last month's reading. Then, half innocently, half malevolently: “And what do you manage to read, your Grice?” “I am afraid,” said the Archbishop, somewhat out of his depth, “that a man in my position really doesn't have the leisure. . . .” “Ah, yes, your Grice,” said Rutherford in triumph, “it must be a dog's life! It must be a dog's life!” | Somewhere at the roots of that abundant and creative nature there was a painful, shrinking nerve. One has only to read his letters as a young man to discern it. There are passages of self-doubt which are not to be explained completely by a humble colonial childhood and youth. He was uncertain in secret, abnormally so for a young man of his gifts. He kept the secret as his personality flowered and hid it. But there was a mysterious diffidence behind it all. He hated the faintest suspicion of being patronized, even when he was a world figure. Archbishop Lang was once tactless enough to suggest that he supposed a famous scientist had no time for reading. Rutherford immediately felt that he was being regarded as an ignorant roughneck. He produced a formidable list of his last month's reading. Then, half innocently, half malevolently: “And what do you manage to read, your Grice?” “I am afraid,” said the Archbishop, somewhat out of his depth, “that a man in my position really doesn't have the leisure. . . .” “Ah, yes, your Grice,” said Rutherford in triumph, “it must be a dog's life! It must be a dog's life!” | ||