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Recollections of Rutherford and the Cavendish

DEC 01, 1971
During his years as head of the laboratory, Rutherford came to symbolize its greatness, and the two remain intertwined in the memories of a former Cambridge student.
Samuel Devons

A cat may look at a king, and in Cambridge in the 1930’s there were many kings—eminent, renowned or celebrated in the sphere of learning and yet in Cambridge quite homely figures. Cambridge was their home, as it was ours, the lowly undergraduates. There was Hardy the “pure” mathematician, Housman the scholar‐poet, Keynes the economist, Gowland‐Hopkins the “father” of biochemistry, Wittgenstein the iconoclast of philosophy, Eddington, Dirac and many others. We might only occasionally see, and seldom hear, these illustrious individuals, but their presence gave us a sense of living in history. Education at Cambridge seemed, then, to be more a matter of inspiration by example than instruction by precept.

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References

  1. 1. International Conference of Physics, London 1934. Volume 1, The Physical Society, London.

More about the authors

Samuel Devons, Columbia University.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 24, Number 12

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