Re: cathode rays - historical question

[Mark Sylvester <msylvest@XNET.IT>]

This is helpful, but I think I'm looking for a more subtle distinction.
I've looked at the first 4 turned up by the Google search - indeed I've
seen the AIP one before - they relate the wave vs particle debate. I'm
interested to know what was the thinking of the non-particle school: were
they anti-atomists, philosophically predisposed to charge as a continuum
(and perhaps thus needing a wave model for its propagation), or were they
in favour of the wave model for more positive reasons, perhaps an
interpretation of experimental features that suggested wave behaviour?

The answer affects how I teach the background to the discovery of the
electron. There is already the wave/particle discussion about light. If
there is good reason to mention differences here then I want to do so. In
fact, I have for years talked about a particle vs continuum debate, and am
wondering if I've been wrong all this time.

Following the Jed Buchwald lead I turned up this article
http://65.107.211.206/science/maxwell.html about the Maxwellian concept of
current and charge. It's not by Buchwald, but is clearly derived from his work.

Yes, I've long had trouble spelling Thomson. I think because of Gamow's Mr
Tompkins!

Mark

At 11:53 06/04/03 -0400, John S. Denker wrote:
> On 04/06/2003 10:52 AM, Mark Sylvester wrote:
> > The debate in the latter part of the 19th century about the nature of
> > cathode rays, leading to J.J. Thompsons discovery of the electron: was it
> > primarily a wave vs particle question, or was the issue whether the
> > negative charge came attached to discrete particles as opposed to a
> > continuous fluid (bearing in mind that the atomic theory was not fully
> > accepted by the physics community in that period),
>
> All of the above.  I suspect you could have found the
> answer yourself:
>
>    http://www.google.com/search?q=cathode-ray+history+thomson
>
> It is helpful but not even 100% necessary to
> spell it "Thomson".
>
>  > or is there essentially
> > no distinction between the concepts of waves and continuous fluid (in that
> > anything not a particle had to be wavelike)?
>
> Not true.  To quote from the first site returned from google:
>    http://www.aip.org/history/electron/jjrays.htm
>
>    Maybe cathode rays were
>    similar to light waves? Another
>    possibility was that cathode rays
>    were some kind of material particle.
>    Yet many physicists, including
>    J.J. Thomson, thought that all
>    material particles themselves might
>    be some kind of structures built
>    out of ether, so these views were
>    not so far apart.

Mark Sylvester
UWCAd
Duino Trieste Italy