Thomson 1904
ELECTRICITY AND MATTER
"
J. J. THOMSON, D.Sc., LL.D., PH.D., F.R.S.
""FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; CAVENDISH PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS, CAMBRIDGE
WITH DIAGRAMS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904 BY YALE UNIVERSITY
Published, March, 1904
THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION.
In the year 1883 a legacy of eighty thousand dollars was left to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the city of New Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her children, in memory of their beloved and honored mother Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliinan.
On this foundation Yale College was requested and directed to establish an annual course of lectures de- signed to illustrate the presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the natural and moral world. These were to be designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliinan Memorial Lectures. It was the belief of the testator that any orderly presenta- tion of the facts of nature or history contributed to the end of this foundation more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doctrine or of creed; and he therefore provided that lectures on dog- matic or polemical theology should be excluded from the scope of this foundation, and that the subjects should be selected rather from the domains of natural science and history, giving special prominence to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and anatomy.
It was further directed that each annual course should be made the basis of a volume to form part of a series constituting a memorial to Mrs. Sillimau. The memo- rial fund came into the possession of the Corporation of Yale University in the year 1902; and the present volume constitutes the first of the series of memorial lectures.
PREFACE
In these Lectures given at Yale University in May, 1903, I have attempted to discuss the bear- ing of the recent advances made in Electrical Science on our views of the Constitution of Matter and the Nature of Electricity; two questions which are probably so intimately connected, that the solution of the one would supply that of the other. A characteristic feature of recent Electri- cal Researches, such as the study and discovery of Cathode and Rontgen Rays and Radio-active Substances, has been the very especial degree in which they have involved the relation between Matter and Electricity.
In choosing a subject for the Silliman Lectures, it seemed to me that a consideration of the bear- ing of recent work on this relationship might be suitable, especially as such a discussion suggests multitudes of questions which would furnish ad- mirable subjects for further investigation by some of my hearers.
Cambridge, Aug., 1903.
J. J. THOMSON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER- I
CHE ELECTRIC OF FORCE 1
PAGE
REPRESENTATION OF THE ELECTRIC FIELD BY LINES
CHAPTER II ELECTRICAL AND BOUND MASS 30
CHAPTER III
EFFECTS DUE TO THE ACCELERATION OF FARADAY TUBES 68
CHAPTER IV THE ATOMIC STRUCTURE OF ELECTRICITY ... 71
CHAPTER V
THK CONSTITUTION OF THE ATOM 90
CHAPTER VI
llAUIO-ACTIVITY AND RADIO-ACTIVE SUBSTANCES . . 140
ELECTRICITY AND MATTER
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
ELECTRICAL AND BOUND MASS.
CHAPTER III
EFFECTS DUE TO ACCELERATION OF THE FARADAY TUBES
CHAPTER IV
THE ATOMIC STRUCTURE OF ELECTRICITY
CHAPTER V
CONSTITUTION OF THE ATOM
CHAPTER VI
RADIO-ACTIVITY AND RADIO-ACTIVE SUB- STANCES
