Abstract
ALL workers in science owe much to NATURE, and so I am glad to comply with the request of its Editor to write a few words on the progress of some branch of physics in the fifty years since NATURE was started. I shall confine myself to the effect which results obtained by investigation on the electrical properties of gases have had on our conceptions of the structure of matter and the potentiality of further applications of these results to increase our knowledge of physical and chemical problems. In these investigations we study atoms and molecules when they are charged with electri-city, and the success which has been obtained is due in the main to the fact that the methods by which we can detect the existence and follow the behaviour of these charged particles are almost infinitely more powerful than those which are available when the particles are uncharged. We can by the aid of their charges detect the presence of a few thousand atoms, while the most delicate methods of chemical analysis will scarcely detect a million million. Again, when an atom or molecule is charged we can by acting upon it by electrical forces increase its energy a million-fold, and thus enable it to produce effects by which its presence can be detected. We obtain in this way very powerful and accurate methods for measuring some of the fundamental constants associated with atoms and molecules. We know now, for example, with great precision the masses of the molecules of the different gases; we owe this to the study of their electrical properties.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
THOMSON, J. The Influence of Investigations on the Electrical Properties of Gases on our Conceptions of the Structure of Matter. Nature 104, 224–225 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/104224a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/104224a0