THE DISCOVERY OF THE ELECTRON AND HOW IT EFFECTED A REVOLUTION IN IDEAS

October 30, 2009 | Posted by maneerat

What the discovery of radium implied was only gradually realised. Radium captivated the imagination of the world; it was a boon to medicine, but to the man of science it was at first a most puzzling and most attractive phenomenon. It was felt that some great secret of nature was dimly unveiled in its wonderful manifestations, and there now concentrated upon it as gifted a body of men—conspicuous amongst them Sir J. J. Thomson, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Sir W. Ramsay, and Professor Soddy—as any age could boast, with an apparatus of research as far beyond that of any other age as the Aquitania is beyond a Roman galley. Within five years the secret was fairly mastered. Not only were all kinds of matter reduced to a common basis, but the forces of the universe were brought into a unity and understood as they had never been understood before.

Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | Tags: Aquitania, Atoms And Electrons, Boon, Characteristics Of Electrons, Deflection, Discovery Of The Electron, Electric Discharge, Hydrogen Gas, J Thomson, Kinds Of Matter, Magnetic Field, Man Of Science, Manifestations, Ramsay, Relative Sizes, Roman Galley, Similarity, Sir Ernest Rutherford, Soddy, Vacuum Tube | No Comments »