2-361-805 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sir JJ Thomson, British physicist, 1932 (1956). In 1896 Thomson (1856-1940) , began experiments on cathode rays, proving that they are particles with a negative charge and much smaller than an atom, which were later named 'electrons'. He won the 1906 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery. In 1912 he went on to develop mass spectrometry. From the National Portrait Gallery, London. A print from People, a volume about the origin and early history of many things, common and less common, essential and inessential, by Readers Union, the Grosvenor Press, London, 1956.