1917: First Successful Alchemist
January 22, 2025
By AHNZ
New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was a leading British physicist and the man most responsible for the atomic model accepted today. In his day, which was around the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, we were part of a wider world: The British Empire. Rutherford was a born Kiwi, of our nation, but did his great works in Canada and England. For this he was celebrated and given Crown titles such as Knight (1914) and Baron (1931.) By ‘splitting the atom’ in 1917 while on the faculty at the University of Manchester he became the world’s first successful alchemist.
By contrast, Korean-born Lydia Ko has also received New Zealand Crown titles as a billionaire golf player. Living in non-Commonwealth countries (Korea, USA) and playing all over the world has very little to do with New Zealand except that some of her Dragon Mother parenting took place in Auckland for a while. Being claimed as a New Zealander doesn’t mean much in the current era but when we had Rutherford it was something special. Ref. 2005: Bo-Gyung Ko, AHNZ
Growing up in New Zealand had a great deal to do with making Rutherford the man he was and that he was lifted up for opportunity. He was fortunate to live in a time when we helped men of talent to rise rather than Tall Poppy Syndrome them to death. He escaped life as a potato farmer to become an international physicist. Ref. Rutherford’s Last Potato, AHNZ
This week the Rutherford story has been appropriated by a local politician, Nelson Mayor Nick Smith, for his own ends and blown up as an international news story. Smith is to be credited for his political skills in having pulled this off so well. The story is all over and goodness knows how many international interviews he is giving. I imagine Smith has sent some of his flying monkeys to the Rutherford memorial monument to sharpen it up so he can be there for a photo opportunity with a scowl on his face. He is pretending to be coming to the defence of Rutherford’s legacy but to do that he first had to pretend that it was being threatened in the first place and go on pretending it.
Smith has accused US President Donald Trump of falsifying history and appropriating the achievement of Ernest Rutherford in physics.
Trump’s taking office is the world’s biggest story. Smith has tried to sypon off a bit of that political gas into his own little jerrycan. He is pretending in the media to be surprised and upset that Rutherford is being used as a political football.
In fact, it’s Smith who is exploiting our history and the memory of Rutherford for his own political ends. The script of Trump’s speech is…
“Americans push thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed desert-scaled mountains, braved untold dangers. Won the wild west, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, Lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens, and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.” DJT speech, ABC, Youtube
President Trump claimed many achievements for the USA (scaling mountains, braving dangers, ending slavery,..) without saying his country was the only one or the first one to have done so. Yet in many cases, such as nuclear fission (splitting the atom,) they are indeed the undisputed world leaders.
It’s hard to know the truth about New Zealand history because Machiavellians like Smith are twisting it for their own ends all the time. He can rely on twits to fall for it more often than not. By uniting groups that are, A) Desperate to find something, any little thing, to fault Trump for and, B) Unable or unwilling to check the facts or read for comprehension Mr Smith has a winning combination. These are the people who vote for him.
Mention must also be made of the Mainstream Media outlets anxious to reprint what Smith has said in a vain attempt to stain the new US Executive Administration. Just look at all those feature stories above from around the world! New Zealand led the way.
Addendum
Smith’s interview with Newstalk ZB’s Andrew Dickens was the first I heard. Dickens is the do-anything hack the station brings in to fill in if regular staff don’t’ show up or perhaps refuse to voice act out their scripts. He had also been running interference for one of the stations advertisers to protect it from Advertising Standards Authority complaints. Pet-n-Sur are a major account for the radio station with many advertisements based around exploiting pet owner’s pain point about injury, death, upset children, and cost. There adverts are incredibly exploitative and it’s no wonder there are complaints. Someone had pointed out that one of them modeled not teaching kids pet responsibility but instead trusting to insurance to fix the broken animals afterwards. Dickens somehow duped ASA CEO Hilary Souter into coming on the show to mock the complaints and compare them to bigots who complain about people picking noses¹. He then led a group discussion² called “Are we a nation of humorless whiners” where he egged on Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union and Richard Hills and the Auckland City Council to help defend the radio station’s client. And, boost Nick Smith’s story.
As long as people keep on believing whatever they read or hear on the radio there will be lots of money to be made manufacturing consent. Nick Smith knows how to use it and government-made radio Newstalk ZB are vicious about protecting it. The truth, and history, is collateral damage.
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1 Source online for 1 week only: Hilary Souter: ASA chief executive looks back at the 2024 ads that sparked controversy, ZB (21/1/2025)
2 Source online for 1 week only: The Huddle: Are we a nation of humourless whiners?, ibid
Image ref. Ernest Rutherford outside Havelock School 1925; Ginny Brownlee, Facebook
Image ref. Smith as Don Quixote. Thomas Scott, Dominion Post (2015,) cropped
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