A History of the Electron: J. J. and G. P. Thomson by Jaume Navarro (PDF)

Description

Two landmarks in the history of physics are the discovery of the particulate nature of cathode rays (the electron) by J. J. Thomson in 1897 and the experimental demonstration by his son G. P. Thomson in 1927 that the electron exhibits the properties of a wave. Together, the Thomsons are two of the most significant figures in modern physics, both winning Nobel prizes for their work. This book presents the intellectual biographies of the father-and-son physicists, shedding new light on their combined understanding of the nature of electrons and, by extension, of the continuous nature of matter. It is the first text to explore J. J. Thomson’s early and later work, as well as the role he played in G. P. Thomson’s education as a physicist and how he reacted to his son’s discovery of electron diffraction. This fresh perspective will interest academics and graduate students working in the history of early twentieth-century physics.

User’s Reviews

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⭐The value of this book is how it describes the reality of fundamental physics by combining the biographies of a famous father & son pair of physicists along with the biography of the electron – the first of the fundamental particles that have revolutionized modern physics.This book describes how the more academically successful father (Joseph John or J.J. as he was universally known) was reluctant to give up his attachment to classical physics engrained in him at Cambridge University to the extent that he was still a believer in the primary reality of the aether (Maxwell’s metaphysical foundation for his mathematical theory of light as fluctuations in remote electromagnetic force fields). He could not accept the particulate (or ‘corpuscular”) nature of electricity in 1897 but preferred his own bizarre theory of Faraday Tubes that could detach from both positive & negative electrically charged ‘objects’ found in cathode ray experiments and freely ‘float’ around until they completed an electrical circuit. Ironically, although the Standard History of physics now attributes the “discovery” of the electron to J.J., he was not awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1906 for this (as several physicists could claim some role in its paternity) but for his experimental “researches in the conduction of electricity in gases”. He also strongly resisted the discontinuous implications of the new quantum theory and although he was primarily an applied mathematician, he still preferred the British tradition of creating visualizational models that could ‘explain’ reality. So much so, that he rejected wave mechanics as failing to provide any clarity in understanding (a position I share) predicting that a purely mathematical theory would “paralyze science” since one cannot visualize abstractions while visualization is a tremendous aid to concentration of thought and the birth of new ideas. J.J.’s metaphysical commitment to the Continuum (the unchallenged assumption of classical physics from Newton until even today) prevented him from exploiting the rich opportunities presented by this major discovery of the discrete source of all electricity.He rejected Bohr’s atomic model, preferring his own ‘plum pudding’ model of thousands of electrical doublets interacting within a single atom.The last third of the book follows the famous son, G. P. (or George Paget – after his mother’s family), who followed very closely in his father’s research into gas conduction, even when he became professor at Aberdeen. G.P. was aware of de Broglie’s radical particle/wave hypothesis after his translated paper appeared in ‘The Philosophical Magazine’ in 1924. He then modified his equipment to test these ideas by scattering electrons off thin metallic films; the experimental difficulties are well described. Eventually, in 1927 he published his early results including vague images that resembled those from X-ray diffraction. He explained that his results could only be explained by electron diffraction which was consistent with the one predicted by de Broglie. Contradicting his own father, G.P. then rejected the aether and followed his friend C. G. Darwin’s preference for a wave explanation. None-the-less, both Thomsons still valued the continuity of the wave function as a link to the core ideas of classical physics, especially its use of differential equations that was the core technique of mathematical physics for 300 years. In 1937, G.P. shared the Nobel Prize with C. J. Davisson (Bell Labs) in physics for the discovery of electron diffraction.The book (without any mathematics) does a fine job of exposing the messy evolution of fundamental research, especially the difficulty of explaining revolutionary experiments.I cannot give it five stars because Navarro fails to do full justice to the first and primary ontological object in modern physics; for those who need more discussion of this real ‘star’ of this story, I cannot do better than recommend “Representing Electrons” by T. Arabatzis (2006).

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