DISCOVERER OF ELECTRONS.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1924, Page 4

DISCOVERER OF ELECTRONS.

SIR AY. CROOKES'S INTUITION. LONDON, Nov. 23. Dr Fournier D'Albe'.s ".Lil'e of Sir William Crookes” gives an admirable account of the I'am-otts Filglish suienlistr to tvliom tire world owes the discovery of ‘'matter in ti fourth state.” or what wo now know as electrons. Ct D ikes was ;i philosopher in his ideas was far in advance of most oi his contemporaries, though hi:; too guileless acceptance of spiritualism damaged his reputation in his own lifetime. In an interesting "foreword” Sir Oliver Lodge points out his greatness as a thinker and his defects as a man : Crookes was a great scientific man, of surprising persei-viraiu-e ami experimental skill, with Ihisiu-s ol intuition mill insight, which, though at the time they might, .seem wildly speculative, were soon justified by the orderly- progress of science. His personality utis not. specially impressive. In Ids presence tine did not feel the worshipful enthusiasm which some ot the great men of science, has aroused Crookes had the art of making his discoveries pay. He was a practical business man as well as a seer of vis ions. The son of a little Aoikshire tailor who settled in London, he had neither public school nor university education. His family was of astound-ing-longevity, and his father, who died tu the age of 92 in 188-1 had heard front his igrent-graudmolher. Airs f.otind (who died in 181-1 at the age of 105) anecdotes and incidents connected with tin- Great Plague of 1105, which had been toll! her hy her grandfather, a participator in and eyewitness of the events of that year. (This grand father of Mrs l.oitml was horn in 103!' and died in 1729). Before he was 30, Crookes had discovered a new element, the rare metal which he named thalium: and before he was 35 he had lighted on tho germ .theory of disease, about the very date that Pasteur was tit work on it. But the discovery of the electron, byreason of the vast results that, have followed from it. was the greatest triumph of his life, and was received at the time with tho utmost astnishmont. and incredulity.

This disovery was tlie sequel of his skill in producing a vaemim "containing only one millionth of the original amount of air.” Across such a vacuum between two electrodes, Crookes forced a powerful current of electricity: when, near the cathode or negative pole, there appeared a dark .space, and beyond that dark space a green or bluish glow, where the electrons hit the glass wall of the tube, and by their impact produced X-rays. This discovery, though not quite, iii the above form, nor with the modern nomenclature, lie revealed to the work! in 1871). Some thirty years passed before its full importance was realised. In another address in 1 SOI he uttered the famous words: “Science should disdain the notion of finality.” He was right again ; the thirty years since he spoke have been followed by the most astounding advance in almost every branch of physics—the realisation of flight, the transmutation of the elements, the theory of relativity. and all the wonderful achievements of Rutherford. Aston. SoTUly and Bohr which have revolutionised chemistry.