The Electron

What is it and whats it doing

in my pudding?

Excuse me how can you

discover a particle so small
that nobody has ever seen
one?
J.J. Thomson 1897

Glowing tubes full of gas

proliferated and
gained scientific
importance in 1855,
when glassblower
Heinrich Geissler
developed an improved
vacuum pump. It was
one of Geissler's tubes
that Julius Plcker used
when he first observed
cathode rays in 1859.

Plucker's student, Johann

Wilhelm Hittorf, put solid
objects inside the tube
between the cathode
and the glow. The
objects cast shadows.
Hittorf concluded that
the cathode was
emitting something that
traveled in straight lines,
like light rays.

Crookes Tube
Invented by
William
Crookes 1875
Maltese Cross
Tube (on left)

A later manifestation of
German physicist
Crookes Tube

Eugen Goldstein
called them cathode
rays

Since they well

were emitted from the
cathode

Goldstein discovered
positive rays which
were emitted by the
anode (Canal rays)

J.J. Thomson
Using devices similar to Crookes tube,
studied cathode rays
Identified cathode rays as electrons

Term coined by G. Johnstone Stoney (1891)

Determined with basic physics

e/m = 1.8 x 10-8 C/g

Either theyre really small or highly charged
Problem solved w/ Millikans oil-drop exp.
in 1908

J. J. Thomson in his office at

the Cavendish Laboratory. A
colleague of Thomson's,
Lord Rayleigh, said that "J.J.
had something to say on
nearly any subject that
might turn up. He as a good
raconteur, but also a good
listener, and knew how to
draw out even shy members
of the company.... J.J., while
talking, paced the room
vigorously in a manner
rather suggestive of a caged
lion."

Plum-Pudding Model

Ernest Rutherford
1937)

(1871-

came to the Cavendish

Laboratory as a young
man from New Zealand,
and was a research
student under Thomson.
Using -rays emitted by
radioactive elements to
probe into atoms, around
1913 he showed that
Thomson's plum
pudding model of the
atom was untenable.

Gold-Foil Experiment

Other names to remember: Hans Geiger, Ernest Marsd

Modern
View
of the Atom

So what do you do with a

newly characterized
Shoot it at
things, of course
electron
beam?

Introducing
Wilhelm Rntgen (1895)

Using a Crookes
tube, accidentally
discovered x-rays
Discovery ranks
among shortest
scientific gestation
periods
1st Nobel Prize

Crookes-Hittorf X-ray Tube