The Work of Sir Joseph John Thomson

Author(s): W. F. G. Swann
Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1940), pp. 376-378
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17362
Accessed: 05-10-2017 19:39 UTC

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376 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

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SIR JOSEPH on JOHN
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THOMSON
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 I'HE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
THE WORK OF SIR JOSEPH JOHN THOMSON
THE father of the new era of seiene
has joined his ancestors in the great fam
ily of the immnortals whose race bega]
with Newton.
Rich as has been the life of science sine
Thomson discovered the electron, its spai
has been but short in years. But shor
as it has been, it has seemed even shorter
for n-iew domains have opened up wit]
such speed that th ere has been no res
to count the passage of time, and evei
to-day one is apt to think of the belovec
J. J. as a young mnan, and to be almos
startled to recall that he died (Augus
30, 1940) at the ripe age of 83.
Thomson was symbolic in part of th
old school of physics and in part of th
new. Like Newton, Kelvin, Maxwell an(
Rayleigh, with Faraday standing as al
exception, he wcas thoroughly trained ii
the technique of, and constructive in
mathematical physics, and this grea
power stood always in readiness to serv
the needs of interpretation of his experi
mental researches., Unlike these grea
predecessors, however, whose interest
ramifiedc over all fields of natural philos
ophy, he symbolized that era of speciali
zation which has evolved more or less a
a necessary consequence of the ever-in
creasing complexity in all fields ol
physics.
It was in 1884 that Thomson becam4
Cavendish professor of physies at an age
-28 years-so unulsual for such distine
tion, particularly in t:hose days, as tc
bring forth fromn a well-known colleg(
tutor an utterance tlo the effect that thingsThe atom was given a name a name
had come to a pretty pass in the univer
sity when mere boys were made profes
sors. He was precipitated into this realm
of responsibility from a school of physic,
which seemed to have attained the goal
of all that was eve-r likely to be possible feeling the need of something in which
a school in w:hich many were busy ir
polish.ing up the work of their Dredeees.
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sors by adding a decimal point here and
there. In this school a certain pedantic
spirit of eaution had evolved, a spirit
which feared lest science should become
contaminated in the slightest degree by
speculation. The ideal was to confine
atten-ition-i as far as possible to the experi-
ments themselves, and drag from them
such light in the matter of understand-
ing and correlation as they were capable
of revealing, by a more or less emipirical
dissection with strict adherence to use of
the surgical instruments provided by the
mechanisms of mathematical analysis.
Suggestions of inner structures to facili-
tate the reasoning were viewed with sus-
picion. One was allowed to speak of a
current of electricity as a convenience of
language, but woe unto him who implied
that he was thinking of anything moving
along the wire. Even Maxwell, the
father of mathematical electrodynamics,
hesitated to speak of particles of elec-
tricity; and when for convenience in dis-
cussing electrolysis he is constrained to
speak of a molecule of electricity, he says
that the phrase is out of harmony with
the rest of his treatise. One was per-
mitted to speak of atoms and molecules
more or less in whispers, but the disci-
pline imposed upon onee's thoughts is
symbolized by the great Kelvin's com-
plaint made, in later years, against the
new ideas of atomic structure and dis-
integration, a conmplaint which main-
tained that the very word "atom" imn-
plied that the entity was indivisible.
considered safe to protect it from heresy
-and it was expected to Iive up to its
name.
There was an exception to the un-seen
things which were forbidden. Physics,
to transmit light waves, had come to
aclmYni t a-n apt;h P- ni-irl a.ls.Rie.nl vnm
377
378 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY
occupied such a respectable place as the
vassal of all the mathematicians since
Newton, that it was regarded as a highly
proper agency to operate the aether.
Physics had a mnerry time for many
years trying to make an aether which
conld be worked by the dynamics or
a dynamics which would work the
aether. The desire for a substantial
aether, and a conventional one, is illus-
trated by such remnarks as that of the
eminent contenmporary of J. J. Thomson,
Arthur Schuster, who, as late as 1904,
writes: "The study of physics must be
based on a knowledge of mechanics, and
the problem of light will onily be solved
when we have discovered the mechanical
properties of the aether." Writing, in
another place, of Maxwell 's equation,
he remarks: "The fact that this evasive
school of philosophy has received some
countenance from the writings of Hein-
rich Hertz renders it all the mnore neces-
sary that it should be treated seriously
and resisted strelnuously. "
Thomnson himself was sensitive to the
call of the new for contact with the old,
and following Faraday, but aided by a
more comprehensive m-athematical knowl-
edge, he spent mnuch effort in seeking to
interpret Maxwell's mathematical fram-e-
work in terms of the seemingly more con-
crete properties of " tubes of force."
His earlier writings on "Applications of
Dylnamics to Physics and Chemistry "
and his "Treatise on the Motion of Vor-
tex Rings" show close contact with the
type of investigations of his mathemati-
cal predecessors, but even in the early
eighties we find hini interested in the
properties of moving electrical charges,
regarded as concrete enitities. After his
electioni to the Cavendish professorship,
his interests centered rapidly upon that
field of conduetion of electricity in gases
in which he and his m-any eminent stu-
dents did so mu-ch to write that new
chapter in the history of seieniee which
gives immortality to his nanme.
Like most radicals in physics, Thom-son
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becamue quite, conservative in his own
radicalism, and did not look with any
great favor upon the birth of even the
Bohr-Sommerfeld theory. In spite of
this, in seekilng ways of correlating nature
within the frame of the philosophy of
classical electrodynamics, he was bold in
speculatioln, even beyond the courage of
those who viewed a comnplete break with
the past with equaninmity.
Thomson 's "Recollections and Reflee-
tions" contains an interesting side light
upon his attitude towards creative think-
ing. He writes: "There is no better way
of getting a good grasp of your subject,
or one more likely to start more ideas for
research, than teaching it or lecturing
about it, especially if your hearers know
very little about it, and it is all to the
good if they are rather stupid. You
have then to keep looking at your sub-
ject from different angles until you find
the one which gives the simplest outline,
and this may give you new views about
it and lead to further investigations. I
believe, too, that new ideas coime more
freely if the mincd does not dwell too
long oln one subject without ilnterruption,
but when the thread of one's thoughts is
broken froin time to time. It is, I think,
a general experience that new ideas about
a subject generally colme when one is not
thinking about it at the time, though one
must have thought about it a good deal
before. "
Thomson sylmbolizes, perhaps m-ore
than any other physicist, the creator of
a "school" of physics. When one thinks
of himn, it seemns impossible to separate
him from this school. Beloved by his
many illustrious students, he seems
rather as an elder brother almong them,
a brother in a family which will forever
remain illustrious in the annals of
scieniee.
W. F. G. SWANN,
Director
BARTOL RESEARCTi FOUNDATION OF THE
FRANKLIN INSTITUTE