"A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford"
Pub. Date: November 2007 (208 pages)
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN-10: 039305750X
Richard Reeves, best known for his acclaimed trilogy on the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, will move 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 will be published by W.W. Norton as part of the "Great Discoveries" series created by Atlas Books.
About Richard Reeves
Richard Reeves, Senior Lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, is an author and syndicated columnist whose column has appeared in more than 100 newspapers since 1979. A new column also appears on Yahoo! News each Friday. He has received dozens of awards for his work in print, television and film.
Educated as a mechanical engineer, Richard Reeves began his career in journalism at the age of 23, founding the Phillipsburg Free Press in Phillipsburg, N.J. He has been a correspondent for the Newark Evening News and the New York Herald Tribune and was the Chief Political Correspondent of The New York Times. He has also written for numerous other publications, becoming National Editor and Columnist for Esquire and New York Magazine along the way. Named a "literary lion" by the New York Public Library, Reeves has won a number of print journalism awards and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and juror.
In 1975, Reeves published his first book, "A Ford, not a Lincoln." His "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" is now considered the authoritative work on the 35th president, has won several national awards and was named the Best Non-Fiction Book of 1993 by Time and Book of the Year by Washington Monthly.
Reeves has also worked extensively on television and in film. He was Chief Correspondent on "Frontline". He has made six television films and won all of television`s major documentary awards: the Emmy for "Lights, Camera . . . Politics!" for ABC News; the Columbia-DuPont Award for "Struggle for Birmingham" for PBS; and the George Foster Peabody Award for "Red Star over Khyber" for PBS. He has also appeared in two feature films, "Dave" and "Seabiscuit".
In 1998, he won the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association for distinguished contributions to the understanding of American politics. He was the Goldman Lecturer on American Civilization and Government at the Library of Congress that year; the lectures were published by Harvard University Press under the title "What the People Know: Freedom and the Press."
In 2007, W.W. Norton will publish his biography — and re-creation of the experiments — of Ernest Rutherford, the Nobel prizewinning physicist, who was born on the frontier of New Zealand in 1871 and went on to become the greatest experimental scientist of his time, discovering the unimagined subatomic world we now know and then splitting the atom he first envisioned. He is currently working in the United States and Europe on a history of the Berlin Airlift, scheduled for publication in 2008.experimental scientist of his time, discovering the unimagined subatomic world we now know and then splitting the atom he first envisioned. He is currently working in the United States and Europe on a history of the Berlin Airlift, scheduled for publication in 2008.
Positions
Chief Correspondent, Frontline, PBS, 1981-1984.
Panelist, We Interrupt This Week, PBS, 1978
National Editor and Columnist, Esquire, 1976-1980.
National Editor and Columnist, New York Magazine, 1971-1976.
Chief Political Correspondent, The New York Times, 1966-1971.
Correspondent, The New York Herald Tribune, 1965-66.
Correspondent, The Newark Evening News, 1963-65.
Editor, Phillipsburg (N.J.) Free Press, 1961-63.
Engineer, Ingersoll-Rand Co., 1960-61.
Publications
President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Simon and Schuster, 2001
What The People Know: Freedom and the Press, Harvard University, 1998
Do the Media Govern?, Sage, 1997 (with Shanto Iyengar)
Family Travels: Around the World in 30 Days, Andrews and McMeel, 1997
Character Above All, Vol. 4, Simon and Schuster Audio, 1996
Running in Place, Andrews and McMeel, 1996
President Kennedy: Profile of Power, Simon and Schuster, 1993
The Reagan Detour, Simon and Schuster, 1984
Passage to Peshawar, Simon and Schuster, 1983
American Journey; Travelling with Tocqueville, Simon and Schuster, 1982
Jet Lag, Andrews and McMeel, 1981
Convention, Harcourt Brace, 1977
Old Faces of 1976, Harper and Row, 1976
A Ford, not a Lincoln, Harcourt Brace, 1975
Hundreds of magazine articles on public affairs for most major American magazines, including particularly New York Magazine, The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine.
Films
"Plowing Up a Storm", PBS, 1986
"Red Star Over Afghanistan", PBS, 1984
"Struggle for Birmingham", PBS, 1984
"American Journey", PBS, 1983
Lights, Camera . . . Politics", ABC, 1980
"TV on Trial", PBS, 1978
