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| Joseph John Thomson |
Joseph
John Thomson was born in Cheetham Hill, a suburb of Manchester on December 18,
1856. He enrolled at Owens College, Manchester, in 1870, and in 1876 entered
Trinity College, Cambridge as a minor scholar. He became a Fellow of Trinity
College in 1880, when he was Second Wrangler and Second Smith's Prizeman, and
he remained a member of the College for the rest of his life, becoming Lecturer
in 1883 and Master in 1918. He was Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics
at Cambridge, where he succeeded Lord Rayleigh, 1884-1918 and Honorary Professor
of Physics, Cambridge and Royal Institution, London.
Thomson's
early interest in atomic structure was reflected in his Treatise on the Motion
of Vortex Rings which won him the Adams Prize in 1884. His Application Dynamics
to Physics and Chemistry appeared in 1886, and in 1892 he had notes on the
latest research on Electricity and Magnetism published. This latter work
includes the results obtained after the emergence of James Clerk Maxwell's
famous "Treatise" and often referred to as "the third volume of
Maxwell". Thomson collaboration with Professor JH Poynting in a
four-volume textbook of physics, material properties, and in 1895 he produced
Elements of the Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, 5th edition
which appeared in 1921.
In
1896, Thomson visited the United States to give a course of four lectures,
which summarizes new studies at Princeton. This lecture was later published as
Electrical Discharge through Gases (1897). After returning from America, he
achieved the most brilliant work of his life - an original study of cathode
rays culminating in the discovery of the electron, which was announced during
the evening lecture to the Royal Institution on Friday, April 30, 1897. His
book, Conduction of Electricity through Gases, published in 1903 was described
by Lord Rayleigh as a review of "the great days of the Thomson at the
Cavendish Laboratory". The next edition, written in collaboration with his
son, George, in two volumes (1928 and 1933).
Thomson
returned to America in 1904, to deliver six lectures on electricity and matter
at Yale University. They contain some important statements about atomic
structure. He discovered a method to separate types of atoms and molecules by
using positive rays, an idea developed by Aston, Dempster and others towards
many isotope discoveries. Besides just mentioned, he wrote the books, The
Structure of Light (1907), The theory of the living cell of Matter (1907),
Positive Electric Rays (1913), The Electron in Chemistry (1923) and his
autobiography, Memories and Reflections (1936) , among many other publications.
Thomson,
a recipient of the Order of Merit, was knighted in 1908. He elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society in 1884 and served as President during 1916-1920, he received
the Royal and Hughes Medal in 1894 and 1902, and the Copley Medal 1914. He was
awarded the Hodgkins Medal (Smithsonian Institute, Washington) in 1902;
Franklin Medal and the Medal Scott (Philadelphia), 1923; Mascart Medal (Paris),
1927; Dalton Medal (Manchester), 1931, and the Faraday Medal (Institute of
Civil Engineers) in 1938. He was President of the British Association in 1909
(and of part A in 1896 and 1931) and he holds an honorary doctorate from the
University of Oxford, Dublin, London, Victoria, Columbia, Cambridge, Durham, Birmingham,
Göttingen, Leeds, Oslo, Sorbonne, Edinburgh, Reading, Princeton, Glasgow, Johns
Hopkins, Aberdeen, Athens, Cracow and Philadelphia.
In 1890, he married Rose
Elisabeth, daughter of Sir George E. Paget, they had a son, now Sir George
Paget Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of London, who
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937, and one daughter. From Nobel
Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967. This
autobiography / biography was written at the time of the award and first
published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and
republished in Nobel Lectures. And last J.J. Thomson died on August 30, 1940.
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