On the outskirts of Nelson is the birthplace of what many call New Zealand's most famous person. He was Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear pyhsics. He discovered the concept of radioactive half life and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 for his work on radioactivity. He was the first to split the atom in 1918 and discovered and named the proton.
There is a very well done memorial constructed at his birthplace in Brightwater, just outside Nelson. Rutherford spent his formative years schooling in Nelson and is a graduate of Nelson College (high school to us North Americans). After his university studies in New Zealand he traveled to Canada and eventually the UK to take prominent positions at prominent universities. It was interesting reading about him to find out he had been passed over for a few different scholarships during his youth in favor of others. How foolish that must have made some people look after he achieved what he did.
He is buried at Westminster Abbey in London near other scientific giants. It seems a shame he is not buried here in New Zealand.
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