Ernest Rutherford is one of the greatest physicists of all time. Rutherford can be called the founder of nuclear physics.He was born in 1871 in New Zealand in the family who had emigrated from Great Britain. He was one of the best pupils in primary and secondary schools where he won prizes in history and languages as well as mathematics. At the age of 19, he finished school and entered the University of New Zealand where he began his research work and made his first scientific reports. Ernest Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895 as a highly skilled 23-year-old man who had three degrees from the University of New Zealand and had a reputation of an outstanding researcher.At the end of the 19th century, many scientists thought that no new achievements in physics could be made. However, in some years, Rutherford succeeded in developing a new field of physics called radioactivity. Rutherford made his greatest contribution to science with his nuclear theory of the atom. In 1908, he received the Nobel Prize-but for chemistry. He worked in leading universities of England, Canada, the USA and New Zealand. During his lifetime, Rutherford was awarded many scientific prizes.