A SCIENTIST who unlocked the secret of the atom has been honoured with the unveiling of a plaque at his birthplace in Rishton.

Sir Ernest Marsden was born in Hermitage Street in 1889, and attended the Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn.

He conducted a ground-breaking piece of work into the construction of the atom while an undergraduate at Manchester University in 1909.

Working in the dark, the young physicist painstakingly counted the flashes produced when recently discovered alpha particles hit a piece of gold foil.

It was two years after his work was published that his professor Lord Rutherford was able to study the work and assess the implications.

Marsden's study found that only a tiny part of the atom is made up of a charge, rather than the whole atom, helping the understanding of how they attract each other.

Nuclear physics was born, enabling new mathematical calculations and leading to many of the advances of the 20th century.

One of the major developments was MRI scanners which centre on the atoms in a patient's body.

If a powerful radio wave is sent through the atoms, they 'sing', and by listening to their song, doctors can determine where blood supply and certain organs are.

An understanding of how atoms form solids and crystals also led to the development of transistors and later computer chips, used in many household items including mobile phones.

Ernest emigrated to New Zealand to take up a professorship in his 20s and became president of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

He was knighted in 1958, and died in 1970.

His Rishton origins were only recently discovered by the Institute of Physics who arranged for the commemorative plaque to be put on his former home.

At the unveiling ceremony were Hyndburn Mayor Councillor Sandra Hayes, and Peter Melville director of international affairs at the Institute of Physics.

Doctor Chris Bowdery, chairman of the institute's Lancashire and Cumbria branch, was also present to see the Hyndburn scientist honoured.

He said: "He was certainly a remarkable man because he did a world-class experiment when he didn't even have a degree to his name, and went on to be an enthusiastic teacher and science administrator.

"He deserves to be much better known in this country."