Nobel Lecture, Decemin Nobel Lectures: Physics, 1901-1921 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967), pp. (See Pais 1986.) But Thomson did carry out this measurement and (later) the measurement of the particles's charge, and he recognized its importance as a constituent of ordinary matter. Thomson was not the only physicist to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of cathode rays in 1897, nor the first to announce his results. The credited discoverer makes crucial contributions to be sure, but often after fundamental observations have been made and tools invented by others. In what sense, then, can Thomson be said to have discovered the electron? After all, he did not invent the vacuum tube or discover cathode rays. Clearly, the characterization of cathode rays was a process begun long before Thomson's work, and several scientists made important contributions. The case of the electron raises several interesting points about the discovery process. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1906 for this work, and in 1908 he was knighted. In 1899, he measured the charge of the particles, and speculated on how they were assembled into atoms. In 1897 he reported that "cathode rays" were actually negatively charged particles in motion he argued that the charged particles weighed much less than the lightest atom and were in fact constituents of atoms. For much of his career, Thomson worked on various aspects of the conduction of electricity through gases. Thomson was the Cavendish professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge University and director of its Cavendish Laboratory from 1884 until 1919. Thomson, 1856-1940 see photo at American Institute of Physics) is widely recognized as the discoverer of the electron. In 1913 Thomson published an influential monograph urging chemists to use the mass spectrograph in their analyses.Discovery of the Electron: J. His nonmathematical atomic theory-unlike early quantum theory-could also be used to account for chemical bonding and molecular structure (see Gilbert Newton Lewis and Irving Langmuir). Of all the physicists associated with determining the structure of the atom, Thomson remained most closely aligned to the chemical community. He was a good lecturer, encouraged his students, and devoted considerable attention to the wider problems of science teaching at university and secondary levels. Even though he was clumsy with his hands, he had a genius for designing apparatus and diagnosing its problems. In 1884 he was named to the prestigious Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, although he had personally done very little experimental work. He was then recommended to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a mathematical physicist. Instead young Thomson attended Owens College, Manchester, which had an excellent science faculty. His father intended him to be an engineer, which in those days required an apprenticeship, but his family could not raise the necessary fee. Ironically, Thomson-great scientist and physics mentor-became a physicist by default. From "The Growth of Physical Science," by Sir James Hopwood Jeans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948) Early Life and Education
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