50. Determination of e/m for the cathode stream. The cathode rays, first observed by Varley, were investigated in detail by Crookes. These rays are projected from the cathode in a vacuum tube at low pressure. They travel in straight lines, and are readily deflected by a magnet, and produce strong luminosity in a variety of substances placed in their path. The rays are deflected by a magnetic field in the same direction as would be expected for a negatively charged particle projected from the cathode. In order to explain the peculiar properties of these rays Crookes supposed that they consisted of negatively electrified particles, moving with great velocity and constituting, as he appropriately termed it, "a new or fourth state of matter." The nature of these rays was for twenty years a subject of much controversy, for while some upheld their material character, others considered that they were a special form of wave motion in the ether.
Perrin and J. J. Thomson showed that the rays always carried with them a negative charge, while Lenard made the important discovery that the rays passed through thin metal foil and other substances opaque to ordinary light. Using this property, he sent the rays through a thin window and examined the properties of the rays outside the vacuum tube in which they were produced.
The absorption of the rays by matter was shown to be nearly proportional to the density over a very wide range, and to be independent of its chemical constitution.
The nature of these rays was successfully demonstrated by J. J. Thomson[1] in 1897. If the rays consisted of negatively electrified particles, they should be deflected in their passage through an electric as well as through a magnetic field. Such an experiment had been tried by Hertz, but with negative results. J. J. Thomson, however, found that the rays were deflected by an electric field in the direction to be expected for a negatively charged particle, and showed that the failure of Hertz to detect the same was due to the masking of the electric field by the strong ionization produced in the gas by the cathode stream. This effect was got rid of by reducing the pressure of the gas in the tube.
- ↑ J. J. Thomson, Phil. Mag. p. 293, 1897.
