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Home , Frits Zernike, Hendrik Lorentz, Michael Faraday, William Crookes

HiSTory J.J. THomSon

A tribute to J.J. Thomson

I Henk Kubbinga - University of (e ) - DOI: 10.1051/epn/2011501

Europe was thrilled by a new instrument, or was it just a gadget? The discharge tube was invented by Johann Geissler (1857). Very soon it became a British plaything: with his demonstrations impressed the Royal Society (1878) and the British Association for the Advancement of (1879). The new Cavendish Professor for Experimental , at Cambridge, Joseph John Thomson —simply J.J. for colleagues and posterity—took over.

orn near Manchester to a bookseller-anti - reigned supreme, together with Stokes and the quarian in 1856, Joseph John omson was Lord . Physics still was essentially mathematical expected to become an engineer. However, physics. In this context a prize-winning essay by om - B at Owens College, Manchester, his attention son was published as A on the Motion of Vortex ᭢ fig. 1: aer a while shied to . e shi was a Rings (1883). In it he inter alia described, following his J. J. Thomson conscious one, since mathematics was the only way to distinguished namesake, several experiments with (painting in oils on canvas by get an endowed entrance at Cambridge, more particu - magnetized needles carried by cork slices on top of a arthur Hacker, larly at Trinity College. In 1880, then, omson passed water surface, grouping around a large ’s pole at 1903; actually the final examination, second in line, aer Joseph Lar - the centre. Other topics that occupied omson derived in the Common room of the mor. rough his Treatise on and , from ’s work: the of potential energy in Cavendish lab.). Clerk Maxwell, whose tragic death was still in the air, and its relation to the kinetic energy of sys - tems, and electrodynamics. In both, the use of mechanical models—to both the imagination and the mathe - matical analysis—was of paramount importance. rough a series of fortunate coincidences, omson became short-listed when, in 1884, Rayleigh, the suc - cessor of Maxwell, moved on to the , . He was nominated indeed and from the very outset, the discharge tubes with their fairy-like pheno - mena became his favourite research subject.

Discharge tubes; corpuscles In the late 1850’s the instrument-maker Johann Geissler of Bonn University, already a celebrity for his thermo - meters and his air pumps based on , had equipped an evacuated tube with platinum . With the help of a recent , the Rühmkorff- , he produced rapid successions of sparks through rarefied air and other . e set-up resembled Michael ’s when he studied the conductivity of various media. Hence the idea that it was a matter of , this time of gases and accompanied by fascinating effects that could be steered by a magnet. In 1875, a new invention—this

12 EPN 42/5 Article available at http://www.europhysicsnews.org or http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epn/2011501 J.J. THomSon HiSTory

time one by William Crookes, London—brought the discharge tube back into focus. e apparatus in ques - tion became known as the radiometer; it consisted of an evacuated bulb with a set of vanes, mounted on a spindle, which started to spin as soon as it was exposed to light. e experiment suggested that external light could have a mechanical effect, perhaps mediated by rest-gas molecules. e surface of the of the discharge tube, then, could be likened to the black sides of the vanes: in both cases it would be a matter of boun - cing molecules. Gradually, however, the ever more appealing discharge tubes took the place of the radio - meter. Crookes postulated a fourth—extremely rare—state of matter, in which charged molecules could manifest their mechanical power. In one of his contri - vances, a wheel with spades started spinning along a r was calculated, next, from the path in the tube, a circle ᭡ fig. 2: railway in the direction of the , even braving gra - segment; H was the known strength of the electroma - Thomson’s (presumably vity when kept slightly inclined: obvious mechanics, gnet. By varying H and measuring r, omson original) matter in motion driven by matter in motion. established the product Hr (= 287 e.s.u.). erefore m/e discharge tube 2 11 -8 (length: 40 cm; Evacuated tubes with aluminium foil windows showed = ½·(287) /8,7·10 = 4,7·10 e.s.u. In a later experiment, cross-section Heinrich (1892) that cathode rays could permeate which became a classic, omson combined the devia - bulb: 11 cm). such foils, a fact that stressed, from the British point of tion in a magnetic field with that in an electric field. is The pierced -7 anode(s), on the view, the tiny nature of the particles involved. How else led to m/e = 1,2·10 e.s.u. Again, and left, are in brass, might their free paths of some 5 mm in air be explained? dioxide tubes gave the same results, while the metal of the cathode and the condenser Wilhelm Röntgen (Munich), in the autumn of 1895, noti - the cathode (Al, Pt) did not matter, so there were really plates in ced a secundary effect: the unexpected lighting up of fundamental particles at stake; From electrolysis data, aluminium; remote fluorescent materials. (Leyden), the ratio m/e of hydrogen was already known to the latters’ -4 positions have then, made use of tiny particles—by now evidently sub - be 10 . Assuming the charges involved to be equal, suffered. The atomic moieties—to explain the broadening of the omson’s ‘electrified particles’ had to be some 1000 on the lower-left was NaD-line between the pole pieces of a strong electroma - times lighter. His experiments thus confirmed the ear - probably used gnet, as discovered by Zeeman (October 1896). lier results, as to the tiny nature of those particles. to check the Cambridge—with Oxford living in splendid isolation, e combined effect of magnetic and electric fields vacuum quality. Photo: Kelvin even in the UK—had been opened, in 1895, to the aca - appeared to be the most practical way. e quality of the fagan, Cavendish demic world at large and advanced students looking vacuum, then, proved essential: to confirm that there laboratory. forward to do research flocked to the Cavendish Labo - was indeed an electric field effect—that is, without ratory. Before long, the PhD system was introduced in conduction—the rest pressure had to be lowered fur - order to create ‘research doctors’, as in the German and ther significantly. Figure 2 shows omson’s French academia. Among the first to be admitted was well-known tube. e tube in question was blown—by one , from New Zealand; many would Ebeneezer Everett, omson’s cherished virtuoso [2]— follow. With Hertz’s stunning find as inspiration, om - from so glass imported from Germany, known already son set out to study both charge and mass of the for its lightgreen fluorescence when exposed to cathode ‘electrified particles’ that constituted the cathode rays. In rays. e logic was incontrovertible, the calculation a first attempt, he established their kinetic energy by refreshingly simple and straight forward. measuring their heat effect on a copper-iron “thermo- electric couple”, connected to a sensitive galvanometer: Corpuscular matter n·(½ mν 2) = W = kinetic energy of n particles transfor - omson became convinced of the elementary nature med into heat with n·e = Q = quantity of electricity of his corpuscles . ough most gradually involved. A magnetic field of strength H causes the‘elec - adopted the term ‘’—proposed by Stoney in trified particles’ to adopt a circular trajectory of radius r. 1894—, omson did not give in for at least a decade. at radius varies, naturally, directly as the particle’s Indeed, the term corpuscle seemed consecrated by mass m and its velocity ν, and inversely as the particle’s omson’s being awarded the of 1906. e charge e and the magnetic field strength H. Hence mν /e next year, the laureate published his magnum opus, = Hr , or mν = eHr, which may be substituted in the entitled e corpuscular theory of matter . As to termi - expression for W and to m/e = ½ ( Hr )2·( Q/W). nology, apart from some stubbornness, there might be 11 e ratio W/Q was measured first (= 8,7·10 e.s.u. ); some piety in the game, scientific piety, that is: aer all, ᭤

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᭤ no one less than Robert Boyle had ventured to propose, UV-light or X-rays. omson was enthused: in his in his days, a ‘corpuscular philosophy’ of similar stature monograph of 1907 he calculated the speed of his cor - (1661). For omson, then, the physico-chemical puscles in the metallic ‘void’ from the mass ratio with consisted of equal amounts of positive and negative the hydrogen atom to be about 100 km.sec -1 [4]. electricity. e positive electricity was considered as a “sphere of uniform density” in which the corpuscles Positive (Canal) rays; their parabolic were embedded, like the raisins in a plumpudding. His ‘spectral’ lines (1912) earlier study of the ordering of corked magnetic omson’s attention shied to what he used to call ‘posi - needles, was helpful to visualize how those corpuscles tive rays’: positive ions , that hit the cathode, moving could form stable arrangements (Figure 3). upstream with respect to the corpuscles . ese rays had been noticed for the first time in the 1880’s by Eugen ᭢ fig. 3: Metals and their conductivity Goldstein (Potsdam); he had called them ‘Kanalstrahlen’. magnetic About 1900 metals were conceived of as ordered e ions , too, proved to be sensitive to electric and magne - needles— pushed through wholes of positive charges through which the ‘corpus - tic fields. However, where the corpuscles always showed small corks— cles’ diffused like the molecules in a gas. Paul Drude one and the same trajectory—photographed by omson floating on a water surface (1863-1906) was among the first proponents; he was already in 1896—, the ions manifested distinct paths, under the followed by Hendrik Lorentz. Long ago, for metals, the which strongly suggested that they varied as to their influence of an ratio of the electric to the thermal conductivity, κ/σ, mass. A whole series of atomic and complex ions could electromagnet: four needles had been found to be a constant, a law called aer be identified in this way, since 1910 by photographic constitute a Wiedemann and Franz (1853). Drude succeeded in means. In 1912, then, omson applied his specialty, viz. square. five deducing that law from the molecular gas model. the combination of magnetic and electric fields, to a beam needles would form a Where he posited a mean velocity, Lorentz saw a nor - of neon ions, which revealed the existence of two kinds of pentagon. in case mal distribution in the spirit of Maxwell and equally charged neon ions . ey were dubbed isotopes by of six needles, one of these is Boltzmann (1905). A large amount of generally ack - Frederick Soddy. It was omson’s assistant Francis Aston, dragged to the nowledged phenomena now made sense in the new who, aer the Great War, developed the mass-spectro - center, the other light: from the discharge tube phenomena—through graph and proved him right. It was the time that J.J. was five forming a pentagon (from the contact potential of bimetals and the Hall effect— nominated‘master’ of Trinity College, in scientific practice ref. [4], p.111) to the liberation of corpuscles either by heating or by Cambridge’s most prestigious emeritus status. I

Acknowledgment The author is indebted to Richard Friend , the actual Cavendish Professor of Physics, and Malcolm Lon - gair , formerly Head of the Cavendish Laboratory (1991-2005) for their generous hospitality and to Kelvin Fagan for the especially made photograph of Thomson's tube. Courtesy photographs: Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.

About the author Henk Kubbinga is a historian of science at the Uni - versity of Groningen and member of the EPS Group. His work-in-progress concerns The Collected Papers of (1888-1966) , of which volumes I and II are forthcoming (Groningen University Press).

Notes and references

[1] W. Crookes, Philosophical Transactions 170 (1879) 135. [2] It was typically Thomson who, when Everett died in 1933, wrote an obituary of his truefull righthand for well over forty years; see Nature 132 (1933) 774 [3] J.J. Thomson, 44 (1897) 293 [4] J.J. Thomson, The corpuscular theory of matter , London: Constable, 1907

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