J. J. Thomson

Biography

Born near Manchester. He studied at Owens College and the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). Professor at the Cavendish Laboratory, where he created a powerful school of experimental physicists. Nobel Prize in Physics laureate in 1906. His students included Rutherford, Bohr, Oppenheimer and others.

Key discoveries

• Discovery of the electron (1897) — in experiments with cathode rays, he proved that they are a stream of particles, which he called electrons, and measured their charge-to-mass ratio.
• Isotopes — discovered that the element neon consists of atoms with different masses, opening the existence of stable isotopes.
• Thomson atomic model — represented the atom as a uniformly positively charged sphere with embedded electrons.
• Leadership of the Cavendish Laboratory — transformed it into a world center of physics, which trained a generation of Nobel laureates.