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I came into the room which was half-dark and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience, and realised that I was in for trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his.
To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye and cock a baleful glance at me.
Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source [of heat] was discovered. That prophetic utterance referred to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Behold! The old boy beamed upon me.

— Ernest Rutherford Attributed

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More quotes by Ernest Rutherford

It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.

Radioactivity is shown to be accompanied by chemical changes in which new types of matter are being continually produced. … The conclusion is drawn that these chemical changes must be sub-atomic in character.

I do not know if you appreciate the fact that long papers have a way of frightening readers, who feel that they have not time to dip into them.

It is just as surprising as if a gunner fired a shell at a single sheet of paper and for some reason or other the projectile bounded back again.

The study of the radio-active substances and of the discharge of electricity through gases has supplied very strong experimental evidence in support of the fundamental ideas of the existing atomic theory. It has also indicated that the atom itself is not the smallest unit of matter but is a complicated structure made up of a number of smaller bodies.

Radio-activity (1904)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ernest Rutherford (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.