History: 100 Years of Electrons

["Michael P. Grissom" <mikeg@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Radsafers and Medphysers,

The following is from today's physnews:

>ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ELECTRONS.  On April 30,
>1897, at a meeting of the Royal Institution in London, physicist
>Joseph John (J.J.) Thomson declared that cathode rays lighting up
>a fluorescent screen were made of negatively charged particles.
>Thomson boldly proclaimed that these particles--which we now
>know as electrons--could be found in all atoms.  The term
>"electron" as it applied to electricity actually came about in 1891
>to describe the unit of electric charge in a chemical reaction. The
>electron was the first known subatomic corpuscle and its
>discovery marks the advent of particle physics. Michael Riordan
>(editor of SLAC Beamline, whose Spring 1997 issue is devoted
>to the electron centennial) refers to the electron as a truly
>"industrial strength" particle, since it is the workhorse of
>electronics, including television, telephones, and personal
>computers. (Many of these devices organize electrons inside
>transistors which were themselves developed exactly half a
>century ago.) Labor saving devices aside, electrons are of course
>the outer constitutents of all atoms and the principal currency of
>exchange in all chemical reactions. (See also the AIP History
>Center's web exhibit at www.aip.org/history/electron)

Those of you interested in seeing the anniversary edition of the
Beamline may view a PDF version at the following Web URL:

	http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/97i.pdf

Ciao,

MikeG.


-----------------------
Michael P. Grissom
Assistant Director (ES&H) 
SLAC
mailto:mikeg@slac.stanford.edu
Phone:  (415) 926-2346
Fax:    (415) 926-3030