J. J. Thomson Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

I have described at some length the application of Positive Rays to chemical analysis; one of the main reasons for writing this book was the hope that it might induce others, and especially chemists, to try this method of analysis. I feel sure that there are many problems in chemistry, which could be solved with far greater ease by this than any other method. The method is surprisingly sensitive — more so than even that of spectrum analysis, requires an infinitesimal amount of material, and does not require this to be specially purified; the technique is not difficult if appliances for producing high vacua are available.

J. J. Thomson
The difficulties which would have to be overcome to make several of the preceding experiments conclusive are so great as to be almost insurmountable.

J. J. Thomson
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
J. M. Barrie: What was your most dangerous journey?
Thomson: Crossing Piccadilly Circus.

J. J. Thomson
With the discovery and study of Cathode rays, Röntgen rays and Radio-activity a new era has begun in Physics.

J. J. Thomson
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
If the modern conception of the atom is correct the barrier which separated physics from chemistry has been removed.

J. J. Thomson
The ether is not a fantastic creation of the speculative philosopher; it is as essential to us as the air we breathe.

J. J. Thomson
It [relativity] was not a discovery of an outlying island, but of a whole continent of new scientific ideas of the greatest importance to some of the most fundamental questions connected with physics.

J. J. Thomson
Nature is far more wonderful and unconventional than anything we can evolve from our inner consciousness. The most far-reaching generalizations which may influence philosophy as well as revolutionize physics, may be suggested, nay, forced on the mind by the discovery of some trivial phenomenon.

J. J. Thomson
The progress of electrical science has greatly been promoted by speculation as to the nature of electricity.

J. J. Thomson
I venture to give an alternative method of regarding the processes occurring in the electric field, which I have often found useful and which is, from a mathematical point of view, equivalent to Maxwell's Theory.

J. J. Thomson
The whole mass of any body is just the mass of ether surrounding the body which is carried along by the Faraday tubes associated with the atoms of the body. In fact, all mass is mass of the ether; all momentum, momentum of the ether; and all kinetic energy, kinetic energy of the ether, This view, it should be said, requires the density of the ether to be immensely greater than that of any known substance.

J. J. Thomson
From the point of view of the physicist, a theory of matter is a policy rather than a creed; its object is to connect or co-ordinate apparently diverse phenomena, and above all to suggest, stimulate and direct experiment. It ought to furnish a compass which, if followed, will lead to observer further and further into previously unexplored regions.

J. J. Thomson