J.J ThOMSON

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• Born: December 18, 1856 in Manchester, England.
• Died: August 30, 1940 in Cambridge, England.
• Field of Science: Physics.

He married Rose Elisabeth Paget, who was the daughter of Sir George Edward Paget. Together they had one son, George Paget Thomson, who was Nobel laureate. They also had on daughter, John Paget Thomson.

EARLY YEARS

• During his early education he studied in small private schools where he showed great love and talent in science.
• In 1870 at age 14, he went to Owens College.
• His parents had plans to enroll him as an apprentice engineer at Sharp-Stewart and Company, which was a locomotive manufacture. This never actually happened since his dad died in 1873.
• He went to trinity college in 1876. In 1880 he got his BA in mathematics.

PARENTS

• His mother, Emma Swindells, was from a local textile family.
• His father, Joseph James Thomson, ran an antiquorian bookshop which was founded by his great grandfather.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• He discovered the electron.
• In 1884 he became the cavendish Professor of Physics.
• He discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium.
• He was awarded the Hughes Medal in 1902.
• In 1906, he was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics.

CHALLENGES

• He faced two major challenges.
• 1. How to account for the mass of the atom when the electron was only about 1/1000 the mass of the hydrogen atom.
• 2. How to create a neutral Atom when the only particle available was negatively charged.

As a professor he taught students like Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr who were very successful in chemistry.

CITATIONS

• www.nobelprize.org
• www.wikipedia.org
• www.chemteam.info