Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM FRS was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopdia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday .

In early work he discovered the concept of radioactive halflife, proved that radioactivity involved the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another, and also differentiated and named alpha and beta radiation. This work was done at McGill University in Canada. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances, for which he is the first Canadian and Oceanian Nobel laureate, and remains the only laureate born in the South Island.

Source: Wikipedia