A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford
Richard Reeves, best known for his acclaimed trilogy on the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, moved in a different direction on November 5, 2007 with the publication of "A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford," a short biography of the physicist born on the frontier of New Zealand, in 1871, who became, along with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, one of the most famous scientists of the "heroic age of physics."
A big bluff country boy, Rutherford, director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, was teacher, guide and mentor to 11 Nobel Prizewinners, including Bohr. Using simple tabletop experiments with old copper and glass tubing, string, and sealing wax, he became the father of nuclear physics — "the second Isaac Newton", in Einstein's words — using simple experiments to upset thousand of years of science by showing the atom was not the indivisible building block of nature but was in fact mostly vacuum surrounding an extraordinarily dense nucleus held together by the most powerful force of nature.
Reeves returned to the laboratory where he learned science and energy as a young man to re-create the Rutherford 1911 "scattering" experiments that revealed the atom as we understand it today. Then 20 years later, with young assistants, he became the first man to split the atom, releasing the energy that would create nuclear power — and the atomic bomb. ...All this from a kid on the frontier who built his first bicycle of wood.
The book is published by W.W. Norton as part of the "Great Discoveries" series created by Atlas Books.
Upcoming Events
- Tempelhof Airport, Berlin — April 23, 2009 — "The Berlin Airlift and American Politics."
- Los Angeles, CA — April, 25 2009 — Los Angeles Times Book Fair
Videos of Recent Appearances
The attached video is of a Richard Reeves lecture at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky on the night of October 30, 2007.
Click this link to launch this movie in an external player.
Recent Articles
Richard Reeves has the lead article in the Fall 2007 edition of Berlin Journal, the magazine of the American Academy in Berlin.
I spent the better part of the last twenty years researching and writing a trilogy on the American presidency, doing books on John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. I knew I had said what I had to say on all that. I had to find some new subjects. At the same time, I continued writing a syndicated column for newspapers around the country, an exercise that kept me up on the politics and people of the day and of the twenty-first century. I was not happy many of those days. My country was becoming, or being — seen as, arrogant, self-righteous, and brutal — a monster using its very substantial power to try to enforce a new order, a kind of neo-imperialism. Of course, we meant well; Americans usually do. After all, didn't these people want to be like us?
Reader Emails
JUNE 29, 2009 — RE: Latest Column: Happy Days Will Be Here Again
I hope you're right.
I think you are. Some backup data: We belong to couchsurfing.com. We've had folks from all over the world stay for a night or two on our living room couches.
We recently shared a meal with two college aged women from Europe. I asked about their impressions of California (was it what you expected?) and Americans in general. After some joking remarks about Californians not being as obese as the rest of the country the Swede got a little serious and she said "The difference I notice about Americans is your confidence. We've been all over and it's just not like that elsewhere". Her Austrian friend nodded emphatically. —T.M.
JUNE 23, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
How can people disagree with President Obama’s policies yet have confidence with him?
There were major depressions in 1921, 1929, 1961 (not as big), and 1981. In 1921, the depression may have been worse than the Great Depression but it lasted only a year because Harding and Coolidge cut taxes, let banks and businesses fail, cut domestic spending, and let our industry do its thing.
In 1929, Hoover tried spending our way out, which FDR did much more of, and it made the Great Depression worse than it needed to be and last longer than it needed to last. WWII got us out of the Depression.
In 1962, John F. Kennedy cut taxes and let industry do its thing. We recovered.
In 1982, Reagan cut taxes and let industry do its thing. Even while outspending the Soviets, we rebounded.
Now, with no industry to rebound, Obama is handicapped; but massive spending -- with a projected deficit of more than $1 trillion a year -- and printing our own money while borrowing the rest, how can we come out of this?
We’re sinking, like the Titanic. Those who maintain faith in Obama are either clueless, partisan bigots, or worshipers. —H.Z.
JUNE 10, 2009 — RE: What to do with Enemy Prisoners
I find your commentary extremely naive because of the following:
Not all POW's were treated well in WWII. My father, who served under Gen. Patton, personally captured two German soldiers in North Africa. He took them to a POW camp operated by the Navy. When he arrived, my Dad tried to turn them over to the Office in Charge who said that there was not room for any more prisoners. Dad could not keep them any longer as he was simply a private who had no authority to do otherwise. As he turned to walk away, he heard two "pops". Turning back, he saw that the officer had shot both of the Germans in the head. Point being that there were bad things that happened then.
During WWII, there were Geneva Convention rules that maintained that soldiers had to wear uniforms to identify themselves. Caught behind enemy lines and out of uniform, they would be considered spies and would be summarily executed.
By the time that Viet Nam came along, the rules were tossed out. One of my best friends was killed by a bomb that had been attached to a little child whom my friend was trying to help.
Today, we have an enemy who does not confine his agression to military targets, does not wear a uniform for indentification purposes, and observes no rules of conduct nor morality. He would just as easily kill your grandchildren as he would our soldiers.
I would think that 911 would be enough evidence of what I just said. To me, anything that we can do to prevent more of the same is justifiable.
On the issue of the world's opinion of us, who cares? When they are oppressed, it will be us that they run to, just as it has been for the past 100 years. —R.W.
JUNE 3, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
As a California resident of 40 years, I along with most of my neighbors will be driven from our homes and the state of California if and when Prop 13 is repealed. As I young home owner back in 1979, Prop 13 enabled us to live in Marin County. Your disdain for that measure does not sit well in this household, although you are correct in that California is proposition-happy, clueless about paying for ballot measures.
You fail to mention that Californians pay billions in schooling and caring for illegal aliens. Anyone who lives in the real world in this state sees services being offered gratis when taxpayers are not eligible for the very same. Long lines tie up our post offices daily, as Mexicans buy money orders to send home. The school systems have been dragged down by catering to the lowest common denominator. Hospitals offer English as a second language and are too busy with freebees to notice anyone else.
When the schools are asked for fiscal and teacher accountability, the books and teacher records are not available for public review. The first thing the current governor did after his election was to put two measures on the ballot asking for school accountability. Why such measures would be necessary, is a mystery to many of us. We believed that such information belongs to the taxpayers. Nevertheless, the teachers unions came up with $millions to defeat those measures using a battalion of misinterpretations to side track the voters. No one in the media or general public ever asks where the unions get the wherewithal to fund ballot measures for every election and issue non-stop rebuttals in the major media of anything that asks for accountability.
Accountability is the key failure here, for individuals, the state mad the nation.
The late, great state of California, indeed! —W.M.
MAY 15, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
Of course, you don't realise what you have when you are young. You can't imagine that, amidst all of your insecurities, you will never be as inspired or full of great expectations ever again. Moreover, you have your health, your energy and your good looks, and are not yet plagued by all of the aches and pains that begin to encroach in middle age. For a brief springtime in life, all you have to worry about is yourself and your own goals. It is only over time that many of those same goals morph into the major responsibilities of family and career. There is no staying forever young, no matter how you attempt to cultivate a winning attitude, and all any of us can ultimately do is take a bittersweet look back at our own youth.
As a former fellow professor who has now retired, I can tell you that profession is in the process or drastic redefinition and retrenchment, just like your other field of mass communication, as universities are being run more and more like corporations with fewer tenured positions and more disposable parts in the form of poorly-paid temporary adjuncts. The future I see in higher education is one in which the classroom experience is largely replaced by flat screen monitors and keyboards, and a small cadre of teaching superstars from a few elite institutions replace most lecturers on campuses across the country. Students will keep their own hours, live where they choose and view lectures on DVD's or internet downloads. The human interaction between teacher and student, which we like to think will save our jobs, will be carried out on line, via e-mail or chat rooms. Tests and assignments will be completed via the internet as well. I'm not saying the technology offers a superior experience for the students, I'm saying that economics will drive the change, which I already see happening, just as newspapers are succumbing to the internet and reporters are being eclipsed by bloggers. American society twenty years from now was not imaginable twenty years ago. (And, don't get me started on the transformations in my own fields of molecular biology and biotechnology.)
I think that, within your lifetime, the University of Southern California will be more like the University of Phoenix than you or I care to realise. For what it's worth, your current column makes for a very nice commencement address over the internet, the kind we'll be seeing a lot more of twenty years from now. —M.O.
APRIL 13, 2009 — RE: "post-triumphal us presidnet"
Hello, I enjoyed your presentation in this mornings' advocate...on the various views on Obama...particularly the review of Charles Krauthammer's rather pathetic presentation of about a week ago. Our newspaper has its share of writers that are often on Fox News...and one always wonders if there is a genomic difference between the polical right and the left? Anyway, Your columns are always well done. —E.W.
APRIL 13, 2009 — RE: obama criticism
Mr. Reeves: What! You're whining about criticism of Obama? My God. As I recall, our former president, George Bush literally could not put his foot out of the shower stall in the morning without being criticized for getting up in the morning -for eight years. You were one of the ones doing it. I don't recall anything but distaste and disdain from your columns concerning anything to do with Bush or anything having to do with conservative thinking; but the two aren't necessarily compatible.
By the way, Obama is still blaming Bush for everything and will continue to do so as long as it works and the idiots of this country who don't pay attention to anything believe it. —Anon.
MARCH 28, 2009 — RE: Open to Change?
Like you, I hope Obama will change his disastrous war and Wall Street bailout policies. Our predator attacks in Pakistan are having the same effect as our Viet Nam war raids on Cambodia. Using our growing debt to pay off CDS contracts is insane. —R.C.
MARCH 27, 2009 — RE: The Crisis Scorecard: Winners and Losers
An informative but incomplete piece.
Why ignore the root cause of this mess? Decades of imaginary wealth was created by giving home loans to people whose (potential) wealth couldn't match the real value of what they owned. —B.S.
MARCH 18, 2009 — RE: Latest column
It matters not to you that the United States has the finest health care in the world? The European model and Canadian model is for the most part not that good. We don't ration our medicine, and with the health problems that your family is having, you can't afford to have an operation or procedure put off.
I work in the medical field as a owner of a medical Staffing company that specializes in Physicians, I have been dealing with the American Health System for almost 30 years.
The best testimonial I ever got in regards to our system is from a Surgeon in the 80's you said quote "the genius of the American Health system is that you can have a general surgeon in rural West Virginia, and because he is in business as well as the hospital being in business, he needs to keep up with the latest techniques in surgery and has access to the latest technology provided by a 50 bed hospital in which he refers patients. You cannot find that anywhere else in the world. "
Richard, since the 80's I have credentialed literally thousands of physicians in the whole of the United States from rural facilities to University Medical Centers. And for the last 15 years the quality assurance programs in place by the hospitals themselves has created a group of Physicians quality wise unrivaled in history. Every aspect of their past and present medical practice is scrutinized for quality a nd it is already recorded locally and nationally. Don't believe all the malpractice crap, yes there are glaring medical mistakes, and the patients are due just compensation, but the laws in many States have set up summary judgment boards and have limited the liability on malpractice policies and awards and judgments thereby chasing away the nuisance suits that plagued our healthcare system.
Richard, the most likely solution to the healthcare mess, and I do agree that the insurance premiums are much too high to be affordable, are the Health saving accounts. This reduces premiums in half for a young person or a young healthy family. It also allows everybody that is employed to have a portable policy. It will create the competition needed to bring the prices of health care down naturally through the market. It is working in many places now, but since it is not a popular option, it is totally under used.
I hope you read my responses, I do love your columns and hope you hear my side! —C.R.
MARCH 16, 2009 — RE: The Health Care Issue
Hi: For the very first time in years I was excited about issues you raised about the need for some form of universal health care for all. My son, John, has worked for years as a bartender without health care, and just as you wrote he pays at the very highest rates when he has to visit a physician or healthcare facility, when compared to my Medicare charges enforced by the agency. I should add that I am married to a German, and I am somewhat familiar with the good and efficient care for all citizens and guest workers there. The healthcare lobby here seems to convince almost everyone that their social net does not allow any choices, is very slow, and worse yet, is not good medicine. So write some more please.
Incidently, you must be from Jersey. I checked your home page and saw connections with Hoboken and Phillipsburg. I grew up in Lyndhurst, and after working as a printer in NYC for seven years, and with the help of the GI Bill, I eventually became a professor of geography-climatology at Syracuse, Berkeley, Rutgers, and LSU. An American story at its best. —R.M.
MARCH 16, 2009 — RE: Latest column
We need something better, no doubt. HOWEVER, I am 60 years old & in thankfully good health :: 6 ft. tall, 170 lbs., never smoked, very light on alcohol, on no medication, never in the hospital, still run 25-30 miles per week & go to the gym.
Why should I pay the same for health insurance as someone who is 60 lbs. overweight, smokes 1-2 packs of cigs per day, drinks a case of beer every week and is glued to his couch? And may already be on some medication because of previous poor behavior. He MADE those choices HIMSELF. Do not penalize me for it. I have not burdened the health care system for more than a few nickels my entire life. —S.A.
MARCH 15, 2009 — RE: The Coming Health Care Debate
I recall watching, in a crowed theater, the great movie "As Good As It Gets", staring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. With a sick child, little money and dealing with a bureaucracy gone insane, Hunt's character turns to her mother and says, "God dam HMO's!'. The theater audience cheered. Now the president, congress and you want to turn the entire healthcare system into one, gigantic HMO. Why? —B.S.
MARCH 6, 2009 — RE: Latest column
I really get weary of these throwaway quotes that pundits like to use to make their points.
"When over the past 60 years did the American economy grow the fastest? The 1950s and 1960s when the top marginal tax rate was a now-unthinkable 90 percent. And when over the past generation did the economy grow fastest? The 1990s when President Bill Clinton briefly took taxes to 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product."
You know very well that the 50s and 60s prospered the way they did because of a huge pent up demand for goods and services not available during the War and all those men coming back to the work force during that time when the manufacture of consumer goods including automobiles boomed. You are also fully aware that no one paid that 90% rate. The rich were too busy sheltering their money in essentially useless tax shelters, and investing in tax exempt bonds.
And remember that President Clinton himself said that he should not have raised taxes as high as he did. I firmly believe that it was his administration's brilliant management of the country's debt that had a lot to do with the success of the economy and then of course we had the dot.com boom until it became the dot.bomb bust. —E.C.
MARCH 4, 2009 — RE: Class Warfare: Bring It On!
Thank you for continuing to do your work so well. I hope you never retire. I
can't say that I have been a life-long fan as I only discovered you in 2000/2001
when I was desperate to find ANY opinions in the media that weren't tainted by
the oncoming tsunami of neo-conservatism. How could so many Americans have been
mislead? I still shake my head in wonder sometimes. I've followed your articles
over the years and can't recall a single time that I mostly disagreed with your
opinions. It's hard to counter facts and you obviously do your homework before
writing for the public. Anyways (sorry, Jersonics...), I know you probably will
not even read this as you most likely have people to do that for you but in case
you do here's one proud and loyal and (slightly) liberal American who thinks you
are doing a great job. —R.B.
MARCH 2, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
I agree 100% with you, even though I voted Republican most of my life. It just seems to me that in the last 20 years, the so-called religious right has hijacked
that party. Admittedly, I wasn't paying very much attention politically, but now I am. I think the public must constantly be reminded of the horrible deficit President Obama
inherited from Bush.
I also think the press, particularly the TV press, if the term isn't an oxymoron, is almost as much a part of our problems as the banks and Walmart. They are creating a downward spiral of despair. Unemployment figures are compared to the 80's, not the Great Depression. Many of the stock20market figures are compared to the 90's, so it would seem to me that if there should be less concentration on reporting everything bad, and not balancing it. The same seems to be true of crime. TV loves the gory and dramatic, but they don't balance it very often with a story that shows the goodness that's out there.
At any rate. I enjoyed reading your column - keep them coming!!! —A.K.
FEBRUARY 17, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
Coward! —L.W.
FEBRUARY 15, 2009 — RE: Why Are We in Afghanistan?
This, I believe, is your finest and most important commentary in some time. I'm reminded of play write Arthur Miller, when he said, "The world owes a great deal to his lies", referring to President Roosevelt's deception of the American people prior to WWII and his intentions to join with England to defeat Hitler's Germany. In this case, the opposite must happen. The President must not escalate the war.
Any who think we should win in Afghanistan should first read George Crile's, Charlie Wilson's War. No foreigners are ever going to change these people. Also of interest is Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos by Robert D. Kaplan. Kaplan gives us plenty of examples of why a president must, at times, be able to lie. Recall President Clinton's assurances that we would be in Kosovo for less than a year. Mr. Clinton knew fully that to end the blood shed would require much more time. I believe we're still there.
Next in reading order I would recommend any of Dr. George Freidman's analyses' of global politics: America's Secret War and most recently The Next Hundred Years.
I didn't support President Obama, but if he does as you suggest, I will be the first to applaud. —B.S.
FEBRUARY 15, 2009 — RE: Afghanistan column
Your column on Afghanistan was sensible and wise. It seemed our initial mission in Afghanistan was to get Bin Laden and his associates, nothing more. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld et al failed at Tora Bora.
I hope President Obama reads this column. —T.F.
FEBRUARY 9, 2009 — RE: Latest Column
When responding to your commentary, it is important to me as a person, as well read as I may fancy myself; must always remember that you have courageously been to these areas of conflict, be it Afghanistan or Washington. —C.R.
Latest Column
This is How Congress Works
LOS ANGELES — There is a story Rep. Henry Waxman during hearings on steroid use in baseball that some say is apocryphal. But I believe it — and we have been friends for more than 25 years. It is said that after the sensational hearing where Mark McGwire said he did not want to talk about the past, the congressman came into his office the next morning and said he was surprised there was so little coverage in the newspapers.
Column Archive
Happy Days Will Be Here Again
LOS ANGELES — The word "recession" became part of my vocabulary in 1958, when I dropped out of college to look for a job. It was a tough year, particularly if your resume was as thin as mine. Working as a lifeguard, selling records at a department store or lugging material around at an ironworks did not impress many employers.
Why is Obama So Popular?
LOS ANGELES — The New York Times and CBS News headlined and broadcast last week that their polling indicated Americans have more confidence in President Obama than they do in his programs — especially when it comes to health care and the federal budget.
Sotomayor Looks Like One of Us
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Growing up in Jersey City in the late 1950s, I thought the United States was an Italian country governed by the Irish. So it was a rather pleasant surprise for me when I moved out into the country and realized that this was a nation of white Protestants, governed by white Protestant men, for white Protestant men.
What to do With Enemy Prisoners?
BERLIN — On Sept. 14, 1948, Capt. Kenneth Slaker of Lincoln, Neb., was making his sixth flight as a Berlin Airlift pilot, bringing food and fuel to the World War II enemy capital, which was blockaded on land and on rivers by the army of the Soviet Union. The United States Air Force, along with Great Britain's Royal Air Force, was trying to keep alive more than 2 million people in West Berlin, which was surrounded by East Germany and hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Red Army.
The Late, Great State of California
LOS ANGELES — It's just another day in paradise. Sunny, 75 degrees. Also, this news from the morning papers around California last Friday:
L.A. CANCELS MOST SUMMER SCHOOL CLASSES
GOV. PROPOSES 5 PERCENT CUT IN STATE EMPLOYEE SALARIES
AREA'S STATE PARKS ARE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK
COUNTY RAIDS HOMELESS CAMP
BART FARES GOING UP 6.5 PERCENT ON JULY 1
To The Lucky Class of 2009
LOS ANGELES — Another year, another graduation. But, of course, this is not just another year. For the graduates themselves, it is one of the most important times of their lives. For many of them, their parents and millions of ordinary Americans, it is a very, very tough time.
What is the American Way of Life?
NEW YORK — This is how they got young men into the military in Honduras in the 1980s: They would show Kung Fu movies in local theaters and then surround the building with trucks, scooping up the audiences, young men, of course, and driving off them to army camps and basic training.
The Last Days of Pakistan?
NEW YORK — Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord that the United States and India have plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
Let's Mess with Texas
DALLAS — Rush Limbaugh, the entertainer, announced the other day that he was moving out of New York City because New York Gov. David Paterson proposed higher state taxes on the rich. Paterson reacted by saying that if he had known Limbaugh would go, he would have proposed the tax a long time ago.
Women and Islam
LOS ANGELES — As many teachers of history and journalism do, I show my students "The Battle of Algiers," not because it is one of the great films, which it is, but because it is a good way to begin talking about the cultural clash between Islam and the West.
Obama and Erectile Dysfunction
LOS ANGELES — George W. Bush's last press secretary, Dana Perino, whom I know to be a perfectly sensible person, was on CNN last Thursday playing her part as a loyal Republican by saying that President Obama had embarrassed all real Americans by bowing a bit as he shook the hand of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. That is the same guy Bush once held hands with when he was nothing but a crown prince — Abdullah, not Bush.
Hearts and Minds — and the Grim Reaper
LOS ANGELES — Two months ago, I wrote a column about Afghanistan and the goals of President Obama, ending: "Who are we fighting? Why?"
The Crisis Scorecard: Winners and Losers
LOS ANGELES — There are going to be winners and losers as America tries to dig itself out of this economic hole. You can't tell the players in this very big game without a scorecard, and they're subject to change from inning to inning. There will be hits, there will be errors, and there will be substitutions and new players coming up from the minors.
The Coming Health Care Debate
LOS ANGELES — Uwe Reinhardt is a professor of economics at Princeton and one of the wiser scholars of health care in the developed world. But he was not always a professor with a string of fancy titles and a gold-standard Ivy League health plan. He grew up poor in Germany, and this is part of what he says about that:
"I grew up in a tool shed, and I know how good it was that when we were paupers, my family, we had health insurance like everyone else in Germany. I've never forgotten that, and I would like the American people to have what I had, and my mother had as a kid. So that is why I care."
Which Way is Right for the Right?
LOS ANGELES — Republicans and conservatives are not necessarily the same people. They are not even kissin' cousins these days, as they try to figure out whether they should help the new Democratic and liberal administration try to save a shaky country or follow the lead of their largest person and pray our new leader fails.
Class Warfare: Bring It On!
LOS ANGELES — "We seem to be going back to class warfare," said a Republican congressman from Ohio, Steven LaTourette, after looking at President Obama's first budget.
O, Democracy: A Coast-to-Coast Mess
NEW YORK — Ask about Mayor Michael Bloomberg these days and you get a classic on-the-one-hand answer: "On the one hand, he's been a good mayor." Some say a great one. "On the other hand, it's outrageous what he's doing on term limits."
Why Are We in Afghanistan?
NEW YORK — Twenty-five years ago, when more than 100,000 soldiers of the Red Army were trying to gain control of Afghanistan, I spent most of a day at the Afghan Surgical Hospital on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass, listening to stories about Soviet atrocities.
