He started experiments on the discharge of electricity through gases at low pressure, a subject which he pursued for the rest of his working life. The news of your election was too great a surprise to me to permit me to do so.'ĭespite these misgivings, the appointment of Thomson to the Cavendish chair proved to be an inspired choice. Glazebrook, a demonstrator at the Cavendish Laboratory, wrote to Thomson `Forgive me if I have done wrong in not writing before to wish you happiness and success as Professor. A College tutor remarked that things had come to a pretty pass when boys were made Professors. The appointment was not universally approved.
He began work in the Cavendish Laboratory in 1880 under Lord Rayleigh, the second Cavendish Professor, and, when Rayleigh resigned the Cavendish chair in 1884, Thomson was elected to it, despite the fact that he was only 28 at the time, and was known more for his mathematical ability than for his skill in experimental physics.
He entered without telling his tutor, who on learning of his candidacy told him he was wasting his time - `that is just like you Thomson, never asking my advice.' He was elected. The following year Thomson submitted a dissertation for the Fellowship Election at Trinity. The Senior Wrangler that year was Joseph Larmor, who became famous later for his contributions to theoretical physics. Thomson took the Tripos in 1880 and was placed second. In those days the Wranglers (undergraduates with First Class in the Mathematics Tripos) were placed in order of merit, and there was great competition to come top of the list. He therefore gave up engineering and in 1876 came to Trinity College, Cambridge to read Mathematics. It was originally intended that he should be an engineer, and, at the age of fourteen, he was sent to Owens College - later Manchester University - until there was a vacancy for an apprentice at the engineering firm selected.Īfter two years his father died, and his mother could not afford the large premium required for the apprenticeship. His father was a bookseller and publisher. In 1913 Thomson published an influential monograph urging chemists to use the mass spectrograph in their analyses.Joseph John Thomson was born on Decemin Cheetham, a suburb of Manchester. His nonmathematical atomic theory-unlike early quantum theory-could also be used to account for chemical bonding and molecular structure (see Gilbert Newton Lewis and Irving Langmuir). Of all the physicists associated with determining the structure of the atom, Thomson remained most closely aligned to the chemical community. He was a good lecturer, encouraged his students, and devoted considerable attention to the wider problems of science teaching at university and secondary levels. Even though he was clumsy with his hands, he had a genius for designing apparatus and diagnosing its problems. In 1884 he was named to the prestigious Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, although he had personally done very little experimental work. He was then recommended to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a mathematical physicist. Instead young Thomson attended Owens College, Manchester, which had an excellent science faculty. His father intended him to be an engineer, which in those days required an apprenticeship, but his family could not raise the necessary fee. Ironically, Thomson-great scientist and physics mentor-became a physicist by default. From "The Growth of Physical Science," by Sir James Hopwood Jeans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948) Early Life and Education
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