My Dear Eve...

The letters of Ernest Rutherford to Arthur Eve. Part II, 1909-1911

Abstract

In a previous article, annotated transcripts were presented of seven of a set of 37 hitherto unknown letters. These seven letters were written in 1907-08, from Ernest Rutherford in Manchester to Arthur Eve in Montreal. This article contains a further eight letters from Rutherford written in the years 1909-11. These letters are interweaved with annotated summaries of 13 letters from Eve to Rutherford written in the same period, which are owned by Cambridge University. The period covered in this article saw Rutherford's first publication of the nuclear model of the atom, the beginning of the quantum theory of radiation, and a greatly improved knowledge of the properties of radioactive elements and of the radiation emitted in the radioactive process. The correspondants participated in the First International Congress of Radiology in 1910, which resulted in the setting up of an International Radiation Standards Committee. In addition, the correspondence deals with private matters such as Rutherford's efforts to sell land owned by him near Montreal and Eve's aspplication for a vacant chair of Physics at Bristol University.