Joseph John Thomson Quotes

• The electron: may it never be of any use to anybody!

  Joseph John Thomson

  Use, May, Electrons

  Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Volume 35, (p. 251), 1951.

  168 Copy quote

• A scientific theory is a tool and not a creed.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Tools, Creeds, Theory

  163 Copy quote

• As we conquer peak after peak we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which is emphasized by every advance in science, that 'Great are the Works of the Lord'.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Distance, Yield, Goal

  127 Copy quote

• The discovery of electrical waves... has had a profound influence on civilization; it has been instrumental in providing the methods which may bring all inhabitants of the world within hearing distance of each other and has potentialities social, educational and political which we are only beginning to realize.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Educational, Distance, Discovery

  102 Copy quote

• I venture to give an alternative method of regarding the processes occurring in the electric field, which I have often found useful and which is, from a mathematical point of view, equivalent to Maxwell's Theory.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Views, Giving, Alternatives

  Joseph John Thomson (2010). “Notes on Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism: Intended as a Sequel to Professor Clerk-Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism”, p.1, Cambridge University Press

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• As the cathode rays carry a charge of negative electricity, are deflected by an electrostatic force as if they were negatively electrified, and are acted on by a magnetic force in just the way in which this force would act on a negatively electrified body moving along the path of these rays, I can see no escape from the conclusion that they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of matter.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Moving, Rays, Negative

  "Cathode Rays". Philosophical Magazine, (44, 293), 1897.

  66 Copy quote

• The whole mass of any body is just the mass of ether surrounding the body which is carried along by the Faraday tubes associated with the atoms of the body. In fact, all mass is mass of the ether; all momentum, momentum of the ether; and all kinetic energy, kinetic energy of the ether, This view, it should be said, requires the density of the ether to be immensely greater than that of any known substance.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Views, Momentum, Substance

  Joseph John Thomson (1904). “Electricity and Matter”

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• If, in the very intense electric field in the neighbourhood of the cathode, the molecules of the gas are dissociated and are split up, not into the ordinary chemical atoms, but into these primordial atoms, which we shall for brevity call corpuscles; and if these corpuscles are charged with electricity and projected from the cathode by the electric field, they would behave exactly like the cathode rays.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Rays, Ordinary, Molecules

  "Cathode rays". Philosophical Magazine, (44, 293), 1897.

  28 Copy quote

• This example illustrates the differences in the effects which may be produced by research in pure or applied science. A research on the lines of applied science would doubtless have led to improvement and development of the older methods - the research in pure science has given us an entirely new and much more powerful method. In fact, research in applied science leads to reforms, research in pure science leads to revolutions, and revolutions, whether political or industrial, are exceedingly profitable things if you are on the winning side.

  Joseph John Thomson

  Powerful, Science, Winning

  Attributed in "The Life of Sir J. J. Thomson" by Lord Rayleigh, (p. 199), 1943.

  29 Copy quote

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