Abstract
IN some experiments described in the Phil. Mag. October 1897, I showed that in the kathode rays there were present bodies whose mass was exceedingly small compared with the masses of ordinary atoms; these masses, which carry a charge of negative electricity, I called “corpuscles.” Ever since then I have indulged in speculations as to the possibility of these corpuscles existing in a free state in ordinary matter not under the influence of the very intense electric field which are associated with the kathode rays. As recent work has produced some evidence of the free existence of these corpuscles, I have thought that these speculations might be of some interest to a wider circle than that to which they have hitherto been addressed. In the Phil. Mag. (February 1900), I showed that these corpuscles existed in the neighbourhood of a hot wire and of a metal plate illuminated by ultra-violet light, and recently the discovery by Giesel, Curie and Becquerel of the magnetic deflection and electric charge carried by part of the radium radiation may be interpreted as indicating the existence of corpuscles in this substance.
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THOMSON, J. Some Speculations as to the Part Played by Corpuscles in Physical Phenomena . Nature 62, 31–32 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062031e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062031e0