J. J. Thomson: Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics 1906

Angewandte Chemie - International Edition

Volumn 45, Issue 41, 2006, Pages 6797-6800

  Thomas, John Meurig ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b DAVY FARADAY RESEARCH LABORATORY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Cathode rays; Electric discharge; History of science; Magnetism

Indexed keywords

CATHODE RAYS; ELECTRIC DISCHARGES; MAGNETISM;

HISTORY OF SCIENCE; MATHEMATICIANS;

SOCIAL ASPECTS;

ART; ARTICLE; AWARDS AND PRIZES; CHEMISTRY; ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY; GAS; HISTORY; PHYSICS;

ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY; GASES; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; NOBEL PRIZE; PHYSICS; PORTRAITS;

EID: 33750456499     PISSN: 14337851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/anie.200602651     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. The term cathode rays originated in Germany (Kathodenstrahlen). They were the subject of investigations by Plucker, von Helmholtz, Heinrich Hertz, Wiedemann, Goldstein, Lenard, Kaufmann, and Wiechert. They were also studied by Perrin in France.
2. Many admirable books have been written on J. J. Thomson from which the author strongly recommends: E. A. Davis, I. J. Falconer, J. J. Thomson and the Discovery of the Electron, Taylor and Francis, London, 1997.
3. Osborne Reynolds (1842-1912) is remembered for pioneering studies of turbulent motion and many theoretical contributions to engineering. In 1877, in his paper on hydrodynamics, he proved the production of vortices by the motion of flat plates or solid bodies through water. He had earlier introduced the dimensionless Reynolds Number depending on the viscosity, density, and the linear dimensions of the flow, a ratio that has played a central role in all subsequent work on viscous fluids.
4. John Henry Poynting (1852-1914) is renowned for his work on the transmission of energy in the electromagnetic field and for his determination of the gravitational constant.
5. E. A. Davis, I. J. Falconer, J. J. Thomson and the Discovery of the Electron, Taylor and Francis, London, 1997, p. 8.
6. J. J. Thomson, Recollections and Reflections, G. Bell, London, 1936, p. 35.
7. "Argon and the Non-Inert Pair: Rayleigh and Ramsay": J. M. Thomas, Angew. Chem. 2004, 116, 6578;
8. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2004, 43, 6418.
9. J. J. Thomson, Proc. R. Soc. London 1885, 39, 23.
10. J. J. Thomson, Proc. R. Soc. London 1893, 53, 90.
11. "On the Passage of Electricity through Gases Exposed to Röntgen-rays": E. Rutherford, J. J. Thomson, Philos. Mag. 1896, 42, 392.
12. Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) was the inventor of the radiometer and the evacuated tubes named after him, as well as discoverer of the element thallium. At various times he was the President of the Chemical Society, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Society of the Chemical Industry, the British Association, and the Royal Society.
13. Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien (1864-1928) was the German physicist who was highly competent both as a theorist and experimentalist. Renowned for his work on blackbody radiation that inspired Max Planck, Wien was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1911 for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat.
14. Francis William Aston (1877-1945) is the acknowledged inventor of the mass spectrograph around 1919. His first spectrograph could cope only with gases, but by 1927 he had found a way of dealing with solids. His precise measurement of atomic mass, and its frequent departure from whole numbers, led him to the notion of the "packing fraction", a measure of the stability of the atom.
15. A. L. Hodgkin, Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine, was a student, Fellow, and Master of Trinity College. He describes how J. S. E. Townsend became disenchanted with J. J. Thomson in his autobiography: A. L. Hodgkin, Chance and Design, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 73.
16. Lord Rayleigh, Obituary Notice of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1941, 3, 586.
17. The temptation to excoriate Fellows of a Cambridge college is one that the Master, who often has to hear interminable and frequently self-inculpatory outbursts by rather ineffective individuals, must learn to resist.
18. M. Born in Obituary Notice of Fellows of the Royal Society (see Ref. [15]).