FIRST – Discovery of the Electron
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Hard Oiler
N 52° 12.197 E 000° 07.127
31U E 303120 N 5787561
This plaque, outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, England, commemorates Sir Joseph Thomson’s discovery of the first fundamental particle of physics – the electron in 1897.
Waymark Code: WMCFK
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 05/13/2006
Views: 106
Hard to imagine a world without the electron but someone had to discover it and it was done here, at the Cavendish laboratory in 1897, by J.J. Thomson.
Thomson deduced that cathode rays had a single charge-to-mass ratio and must be composed of a single type of negatively charged particle. Thomson realized that it was a subatomic particle, the first one to be discovered. He initially called these particles "corpuscles" but then realised that these were the electrons that had been proposed earlier, by G. Johnstone Stoney, as a fixed quantum of electric charge in electrochemistry. Thomson’s discovery was made known in 1897, and caused a sensation in scientific circles, eventually resulting in his being awarded a Nobel prize in 1906 and receiving a knighthood in 1908.
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