Talk:J. J. Thomson

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J. J. Thomson is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.

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[edit] Comment '05

If someone types in JJ Thomson or J.J. Thomson or J.J. ThomPson or other variations they're redirected here anyway....--Deglr6328 21:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, but they can't find this article through google or another search engine that way. Someone is far more likely to search for "J.J. Thomson" than "Joseph John Thomson".--Pharos 00:06, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • "J. J. Thompson" didn't work for me. Bubba73 (talk), 05:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Joseph John Thomson → J.J. Thomson

I think this article should be moved to J.J. Thomson per Wikipedia:Naming conventions, as this is by far how he is most commonly known. Is there any disagreement?--Pharos 19:08, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Google and every high school physics student in the world knows him better as J.J.--Pharos 19:59, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose...and the redirect as it stands works just fine for those who want to search for him as J.J. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. —ExplorerCDT 23:21, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Shouldn't the article be at the most common name, the one millions of students learn in school?--Pharos 01:36, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Does the redirect not work or something? Or are you the only one not satisfied that no matter what way you approach the subject you get your information? —ExplorerCDT 04:35, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • What do you mean? I'm just saying that the policy of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) is useful because using the common name allows greater access to articles from search engines like google. BTW, the article has already been moved by an admin who saw the notice, but it might be moved back in the interim for fair discussion.--Pharos 07:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Makes sense - he is better known by his initials. john k 08:20, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. We have other articles by initials - Historian A.J.P. Taylor for one. Timrollpickering 10:30, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Pointless move, leave him where he is now. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:12, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Use the form more familiar to most who are looking for it. Jonathunder 20:20, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)
  • Support. I've lost the "popular usage" argument enough times that I may as well vote against common sense in this instance. Noisy | Talk 01:54, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) --Sketchee 23:59, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support -- ALoan (Talk) 12:59, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Neutralitytalk 06:39, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Suggestion(s),

where it says "exhibited a single charge-to-mass ratio e/m"

i thought the charge to mass ratio was represented as q/m as opposed to e/m.

[edit] Extra image

J.J. Thomson
J.J. Thomson

This image used to be the main illustration for this page. If the aricle gets longer, it can be re-added. grendel|khan 07:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. It is clearer and has a better quality, I guess... Djsonik 02:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great-Grandson source?

Where is there proof that his Great-Grandson is in the World Sumo-wrestling cup Finals? [User:Code_2008]

Id just like to note the vandilism... this page should be locked

[edit] Historical accuracy

"He found that the charge to mass ratio was over a thousand times higher than that of a proton, suggesting either that the particles were very light or very highly charged."

The proton was not known when Thomson made his measurements. Given that this was the first measurement on an elementary particle, what data was available to provide a basis for comparison? As I understand it, Thomson's discovery had nothing to do with the relative size of e or m, but rather that the ratio was constant regardless of the cathode material, implying that these corpuscles were a (previously unknown) fundamental constituent of matter. Does someone with more expertise want to replace the quoted statement with one that makes more sense?

Answer: Yes, the word "proton" is an anachronism in the context of an 1897 discovery. Thomson's 1897 paper on Cathode rays (see References) does say that e/m (actually m/e) is constant, and also compares its value with that of a "hydrogen ion from electolysis". This means that for H+, he estimated e as the value from electrolysis measurements (in solution) and m as the known atomic weight of H. In the article I have today replaced "proton" by "hydrogen ion" which is more historically accurate. Dirac66 (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'm curious about the state of the technology at this age

Hello,

Don't you think the paragraph concerning the experiment could be extended with some description of what Thomson used ? How did he generated electron, etc. I think he didn't open a television to get its electron gun Cathode_ray_tubes#General_description.

And I would like some explanations about the mysterious letters A, B, C, D, E in this image :

2sd experiment
2sd experiment

. I thing E has a positive charge, D has negative one, A must be positive because of the + (and that's good to give Kinetic energy, especially when the electrons don't fall on the side of the cylinder) but what about B ? Is it there only to eliminate electron that doesn't go straight forward, or is it more positive than A to accelerate more ?

Thank you, forgive my english (I learn every day) and congratulations for what have already been done (more complete than the french one :)). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.10.70.218 (talk) 10:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Vandalism

Some one should watch this page... Many attacks on this page by this one person.theOne 09:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signature

where's his signature? Nobel medal instead... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Horiavulpe (talk • contribs) 01:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proof that H has only 1 electron

I am curious about the brief statement under "Other work" that in 1906 Thomson showed that the H atom has only one electron. It would be interesting to know how he did this. Could someone with access to the reference cited (Hellemans, The Timetables of Science) check out his method and his logic? Dirac66 (talk) 01:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brief visits to USA

The infobox now includes Residence USA (the latest edit today) as well as Institutions Princeton and Yale. The article however mentions exclusively the UK and Cambridge. The bio at the Nobel prize site http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1906/thomson-bio.html does contain two sentences describing BRIEF visits to America: "In 1896, Thomson visited America to give a course of four lectures, which summarised his current researches, at Princeton." and "Thomson returned to America in 1904 to deliver six lectures on electricity and matter at Yale University."

I think that infoboxes should list only institutions and countries where the subject spent at least a year, which I believe is standard biographical practice at least for scientists. Series of four and six visiting lectures are so brief that it cannot really be said that Thomson "lived" in the USA and "worked" at Princeton or Yale. If not, to be consistent then for many scientists we would have to give long lists of universities where they gave visiting lectures. Therefore I suggest deleting USA, Princeton and Yale from Thomson's infobox. Comments? Dirac66 (talk) 02:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)