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Top 10 Little-Known Facts about J. J. Thomson

His full name is Joseph John Thomson, He was born on December 18, 1856, in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, Lancashire in England. Little is known about his parents. The father, Joseph James Thomson was an antiquarian bookshop tender that was founded by his great-grandfather.  His mother came from a local textile family and was called Emma Swindells. He has one brother, Frederick Vernon Thomson. He was a devoted Anglican Christian. His early education started in a small but private school and later attended Owens College in Manchester. At an early age, Thomson showed outstanding talent with a lot of interest in science. He started experimenting with contact electrification under the leadership of Balfour Stewart, a Professor of Physics at the age of 14. Of importance to note is that he published his first scientific paper at an early age which was initiated by Professor Balfour Steward. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Arts specializing in mathematics. He attained a master’s degree in Arts from the same university where he became a fellow of Trinity College. Thomson did not just graduate, but also got awards like the Second Wrangle in Tripos, and 2nd Smith’s Prize, and lastly the Adams Prize. It is good to note that he was the Noble Prize winner in Physics in 1906.

Read more about other famous graduates from Trinity College, Cambridge here.

1. He was a Family man

Thomson married Rose Elisabeth Paget, a lady he met during his lectures at the University of Cambridge. They developed a relationship as she attended demonstrations and lectured some of which were administered by Thomson. She was the daughter of Sir George Edward Paget, a physician and Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge. Together, they had two children, a son George Paget Thomson, who was also a scientist and a Nobel Prize winner for his achievement on wave properties of the electron. A daughter called Joan Paget Thomson an author, famous for her non-fiction and biographies and for writing children’s books.

2. The Little-Known Discovery of the Rays

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Apart from his many findings about Isotopes and mass spectrometry, an electromagnetic mass of a charged particle, one discovery is little known about the effect of rays of the sun. By his own observation, the phosphorescent patch was created by the lay hitting the surface of a tube from his construction of a Crookes tube with an electrometer set to one side, out of the direct path of the cathode rays. According to Thomson, the electrometer registered a charge when he deflected the cathode ray to it with a magnet and hence, concluded his research by observing that the rays were one and the same.

3. His Observation on Corpuscles

Thomson lived his life observing any new development the rays could create. In one such observation, he studied the corpuscles emerging from the atoms of the trace gas inside his cathode ray tubes. His conclusion was the atoms were divisible, hence the corpuscles were their building blocks.

4. His Little-Known Discoveries

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Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium in 1905. He also demonstrated something in earlier theories that allowed various numbers of electrons by showing that hydrogen has only a single electron per atom.

5. He was Honoured Posthumous

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The Thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit to measure mass-to-charge ratio in mass spectrometry in 1991. There is JJThomson Avenue on the university of Cambridge’s West Cambridge site in his honor. In addition, the Thomson Medal Award which is sponsored by the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation is named after him. In that same breath, the Institute of Physics Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize is also named after him.

6. His Little-Known Awards

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In 1884, he was appointed the Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. It is important to mention that he was the Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1906.

Read more about other Fellow of the Royal Society leaders here.

7. His Son was a Nobel Prize Winner

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Many people do not connect the British Scientist George Paget Thomson as a son of JJ Thomson. His achievement on the wave properties of the electron won him the Nobel Prize like his father in 1937, a prize they shared with an American physicist Clinton Davisson. Both the father and son were Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS) at different times. They were also lecturers at the University of Cambridge and Cornell University, Ithaca, New York respectively. 

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8. He was an Author

His works were published in mathematics and scientific books. In his first publication “Application of dynamics to physics and chemistry” in 1888, he addressed the transformation of energy in mathematical and theoretical terms. Further, in this book, he suggested that all energy might be kinetic. His second publication “Treatise upon electricity and magnetism” also referred to as “The Third Volume of Maxwell”, highlighted the physical methods and experimentation. Further, the book emphasized extensive figures, diagrams of apparatus, and the passage of electricity through gases. Lastly, his third book was an introduction to a wide variety of subjects which gained a lot of popularity in the field of science. The book is entitled “Elements of the mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism,” 1895.

9. He Gave Lectures at Yale University

In 1904, he delivered six lectures at Yale University specifically on electricity and matter. some of the suggestions he gave included the structure of the atom. More importantly, his teaching on the method for seprating different kinds of atoms and molecules by use of positive rays by Aston were the major lessons he tought.

10. His Student was Ernest Rutherford

He attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He was a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under the training and lecture of Prof. J.J. Thomson. One of his great achievement under  Thomson was to discover the distance at which wireless waves take taking the world record. In 1908, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The prize was after he demonstrated that radioactivity was the spontaneous disintegration of atoms. 

Read more about other famous scientist here.