msumm21
- 248
- 28
- TL;DR
- Wondering how the early experimenters came to certain conclusions
I have a question about JJ Thomson’s cathode ray experiment evidencing electric charge in an atom.
A DC power source was used to create voltage, evidently some kind of battery.
So, at the time of the experiment, they could make DC power sources, but did not know those caused charge to flow in a circuit? If not, did they have a working theory for what power sources were doing?
Given this background, how did they know the “stuff” traveling through the tube came from the atoms in the cathode? They knew the power source well enough to know that it didn’t “create” this stuff internally and circulate it through the circuit? How did they know such things?
A DC power source was used to create voltage, evidently some kind of battery.
So, at the time of the experiment, they could make DC power sources, but did not know those caused charge to flow in a circuit? If not, did they have a working theory for what power sources were doing?
Given this background, how did they know the “stuff” traveling through the tube came from the atoms in the cathode? They knew the power source well enough to know that it didn’t “create” this stuff internally and circulate it through the circuit? How did they know such things?