100 years of elementary particles [Beam Line, vol. 27, issue 1, Spring 1997] Page: 4 of 55
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FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
THE ELECTRICIAN:
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- . :- .. 1: . . I: ::rJ11 11. 1: c l1: n~id .lp- .u : "al {4 hHE ELECTRON-or at least our recognition of
its existence as an elementary particle-passes
the century mark this spring. On April 30, 1897,
Joseph John Thomson reported the results of his
recent experiments on cathode rays to a Friday
evening meeting of the Royal Institution, sug-
gesting these rays were composed of negatively
charged pieces of atoms that he dubbed
"corpuscles." Six months later he published an
extensive account of these experiments in the
Philosophical Magazine. One of the classic
papers of modern physics, it opened the doors of
human consciousness to a radically new and
often baffling world within atoms, one that has
provided fertile ground for much of twentieth-
century physics.
Together with the discovery of X rays and
radioactivity during the preceding two years, and
the introduction of the quantum three years
later, this breakthrough led to a revolutionary
conception of matter that has since had major
impacts on other sciences, on modern tech-
nology and art, and even on the way we talk and
think. The smooth, continuous, comfortable
world of late nineteenth-century Europe was
shattered into myriad bewildering fragments-
some of which interact via forces that nobody
had ever before encountered. Whether atoms
themselves existed or not was in hot dispute at
the time; among those who believed they did
were prominent physicists who regarded them as
vortex rings in the luminiferous aether. A
century later, despite many superb advances, we
are still struggling to achieve a grand synthesis of
all the disparate shards encountered since.
To commemorate this pivotal breakthrough-
and, in a more catholic sense, the discovery of
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Pais, Abraham; Weinberg, Steven; Quigg, Chris; Riordan, Michael; Panofsky, Wolfgang K.H. & Trimble, Virginia. 100 years of elementary particles [Beam Line, vol. 27, issue 1, Spring 1997], report, April 1, 1997; Menlo Park, California. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc717142/m1/4/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.