Sir Joseph John Thomson OM FRS (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.

In 1897, Thomson showed that cathode rays were composed of previously unknown negatively charged particles (now called electrons), which he calculated must have bodies much smaller than atoms and a very large charge-to-mass ratio. Thomson is also credited with finding the first evidence for isotopes of a stable (non-radioactive) element in 1913, as part of his exploration into the composition of canal rays (positive ions). His experiments to determine the nature of positively charged particles, with Francis William Aston, were the first use of mass spectrometry and led to the development of the mass spectrograph.

Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. Thomson was also a teacher, and several of his students also went on to win Nobel Prizes.

Education and personal life

Joseph John Thomson was born on 18 December 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, Lancashire, England. His mother, Emma Swindells, came from a local textile family. His father, Joseph James Thomson, ran an antiquarian bookshop founded by Thomson's great-grandfather. He had a brother, Frederick Vernon Thomson, who was two years younger than he was. J. J. Thomson was a reserved yet devout Anglican.

His early education was in small private schools where he demonstrated outstanding talent and interest in science. In 1870, he was admitted to Owens College in Manchester (now University of Manchester) at the unusually young age of 14 and came under the influence of Balfour Stewart, Professor of Physics, who initiated Thomson into physical research. Thomson began experimenting with contact electrification and soon published his first scientific paper. His parents planned to enroll him as an apprentice engineer to Sharp, Stewart & Co, a locomotive manufacturer, but these plans were cut short when his father died in 1873.

He moved on to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1876. In 1880, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics (Second Wrangler in the Tripos[12] and 2nd Smith's Prize). He applied for and became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1881. Thomson received his Master of Arts degree (with Adams Prize) in 1883.

Family

In 1890, Thomson married Rose Elisabeth Paget. Beginning in 1882, women could attend demonstrations and lectures at the University of Cambridge. Rose Paget, daughter of Sir George Edward Paget, a physician and then Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge at the church of St. Mary the Less, was interested in physics. She attended demonstrations and lectures, among them Thomson's. Their relationship developed from there.

They had two children: George Paget Thomson, who was also awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on the wave properties of the electron, and Joan Paget Thomson (later Charnock), who became an author, writing children's books, non-fiction and biographies.

Career and research

Overview

On 22 December 1884, Thomson was appointed Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge. The appointment caused considerable surprise, given that candidates such as Osborne Reynolds or Richard Glazebrook were older and more experienced in laboratory work. Thomson was known for his work as a mathematician, where he was recognized as an exceptional talent.

He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1906, "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases." He was knighted in 1908 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1912. In 1914, he gave the Romanes Lecture in Oxford on "The atomic theory". In 1918, he became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained until his death. Joseph John Thomson died on 30 August 1940; his ashes rest in Westminster Abbey, near the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and his former student, Ernest Rutherford.

One of Thomson's students was Ernest Rutherford, who later succeeded him as Cavendish Professor of Physics. Six of Thomson's research assistants and junior colleagues (Charles Glover Barkla, Niels Bohr, Max Born, William Henry Bragg, Owen Willans Richardson  and Charles Thomson Rees Wilson) won Nobel Prizes in physics, and two (Francis William Aston and Ernest Rutherford) won Nobel prizes in chemistry. Thomson's son (George Paget Thomson) also won the 1937 Nobel Prize in physics for proving the wave-like properties of electrons. 

Early work

Thomson's prize-winning master's work, Treatise on the motion of vortex rings, shows his early interest in atomic structure. In it, Thomson mathematically described the motions of William Thomson's vortex theory of atoms.

Thomson published a number of papers addressing both mathematical and experimental issues of electromagnetism. He examined the electromagnetic theory of light of James Clerk Maxwell, introduced the concept of electromagnetic mass of a charged particle, and demonstrated that a moving charged body would apparently increase in mass.

Much of his work in mathematical modelling of chemical processes can be thought of as early computational chemistry. In further work, published in book form as Applications of dynamics to physics and chemistry (1888), Thomson addressed the transformation of energy in mathematical and theoretical terms, suggesting that all energy might be kinetic. His next book, Notes on recent researches in electricity and magnetism (1893), built upon Maxwell's Treatise upon electricity and magnetism, and was sometimes referred to as "the third volume of Maxwell". In it, Thomson emphasized physical methods and experimentation and included extensive figures and diagrams of apparatus, including a number for the passage of electricity through gases. His third book, Elements of the mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism (1895) was a readable introduction to a wide variety of subjects, and achieved considerable popularity as a textbook.

A series of four lectures, given by Thomson on a visit to Princeton University in 1896, were subsequently published as Discharge of electricity through gases (1897). Thomson also presented a series of six lectures at Yale University in 1904.

Isotopes and mass spectrometry

In 1912, as part of his exploration into the composition of the streams of positively charged particles then known as canal rays, Thomson and his research assistant F. W. Aston channelled a stream of neon ions through a magnetic and an electric field and measured its deflection by placing a photographic plate in its path. They observed two patches of light on the photographic plate (see image on right), which suggested two different parabolas of deflection, and concluded that neon is composed of atoms of two different atomic masses (neon-20 and neon-22), that is to say of two isotopes. This was the first evidence for isotopes of a stable element; Frederick Soddy had previously proposed the existence of isotopes to explain the decay of certain radioactive elements.

J. J. Thomson's separation of neon isotopes by their mass was the first example of mass spectrometry, which was subsequently improved and developed into a general method by F. W. Aston and by A. J. Dempster.

Experiments with cathode rays

Earlier, physicists debated whether cathode rays were immaterial like light ("some process in the aether") or were "in fact wholly material, and ... mark the paths of particles of matter charged with negative electricity", quoting Thomson. The aetherial hypothesis was vague, but the particle hypothesis was definite enough for Thomson to test.

Magnetic deflection

Thomson first investigated the magnetic deflection of cathode rays. Cathode rays were produced in the side tube on the left of the apparatus and passed through the anode into the main bell jar, where they were deflected by a magnet. Thomson detected their path by the fluorescence on a squared screen in the jar. He found that whatever the material of the anode and the gas in the jar, the deflection of the rays was the same, suggesting that the rays were of the same form whatever their origin.

Measurement of mass-to-charge ratio

In his classic experiment, Thomson measured the mass-to-charge ratio of the cathode rays by measuring how much they were deflected by a magnetic field and comparing this with the electric deflection. He used the same apparatus as in his previous experiment, but placed the discharge tube between the poles of a large electromagnet. He found that the mass-to-charge ratio was over a thousand times lower than that of a hydrogen ion (H+), suggesting either that the particles were very light and/or very highly charged. Significantly, the rays from every cathode yielded the same mass-to-charge ratio. This is in contrast to anode rays (now known to arise from positive ions emitted by the anode), where the mass-to-charge ratio varies from anode-to-anode. Thomson himself remained critical of what his work established, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech referring to "corpuscles" rather than "electrons".

Thomson's calculations can be summarised as follows (in his original notation, using F instead of E for the electric field and H instead of B for the magnetic field):

The electric deflection is given by ${\displaystyle \mathrm{\Theta }=���/�{�}^2}$, where Θ is the angular electric deflection, F is applied electric intensity, e is the charge of the cathode ray particles, l is the length of the electric plates, m is the mass of the cathode ray particles and v is the velocity of the cathode ray particles. The magnetic deflection is given by ${\displaystyle �=���/��}$, where φ is the angular magnetic deflection and H is the applied magnetic field intensity.

The magnetic field was varied until the magnetic and electric deflections were the same, when ${\displaystyle \mathrm{\Theta }=�,���/�{�}^2=���/��}$. This can be simplified to give ${\displaystyle �/�={�}^2�/�\mathrm{\Theta }}$. The electric deflection was measured separately to give Θ and H, F and l were known, so m/e could be calculated.

Conclusions

As the cathode rays carry a charge of negative electricity, are deflected by an electrostatic force as if they were negatively electrified, and are acted on by a magnetic force in just the way in which this force would act on a negatively electrified body moving along the path of these rays, I can see no escape from the conclusion that they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of matter.

— J. J. Thomson

As to the source of these particles, Thomson believed they emerged from the molecules of gas in the vicinity of the cathode.

If, in the very intense electric field in the neighbourhood of the cathode, the molecules of the gas are dissociated and are split up, not into the ordinary chemical atoms, but into these primordial atoms, which we shall for brevity call corpuscles; and if these corpuscles are charged with electricity and projected from the cathode by the electric field, they would behave exactly like the cathode rays.

— J. J. Thomson

Thomson imagined the atom as being made up of these corpuscles orbiting in a sea of positive charge; this was his plum pudding model. This model was later proved incorrect when his student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom.

Awards and honours

During his life

Thomson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and appointed to the Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge in 1884. Thomson won numerous awards and honours during his career including:

• Adams Prize (1882)
• Royal Medal (1894)
• Hughes Medal (1902)
• Hodgkins Medal (1902)
• Nobel Prize for Physics (1906)
• Elliott Cresson Medal (1910)
• Copley Medal (1914)
• Franklin Medal (1922)

Thomson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 12 June 1884 and served as President of the Royal Society from 1915 to 1920.

In November 1927, J. J. Thomson opened the Thomson building, named in his honour, in the Leys School, Cambridge.

Posthumous honours

In 1991, the thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit to measure mass-to-charge ratio in mass spectrometry in his honour.

J J Thomson Avenue, on the University of Cambridge's West Cambridge site, is named after Thomson.

The Thomson Medal Award, sponsored by the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation, is named after Thomson.

The Institute of Physics Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize is named after Thomson.