Summary:
- In 1897, English physicist J.J. Thomson (1856-1940) experimented with a device called a cathode ray tube, in which an electric current was passed through gases at low pressure.
- His experiments showed that cathode rays are actually streams of tiny negatively charged particles moving at very high speeds.
- While Thomson originally called these particles corpuscles, they were later named electrons.
- He concluded that electrons were negatively charged subatomic particles present in atoms of all elements.
- In units of coulombs to grams, this value is 1.8 × 108 Coulombs/gram.