About me:

Hello people of the future, I am J.J. Thomson. Please listen to what I have to say because I have been given a limited time to talk to someone. Apparently I have chosen you! :D. I was born on December 18, 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, United Kingdom. I died on August 30, 1940 in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Or so I’ve been told. O.o”

My first experiment involved the relationship between the cathode rays and the negative charge. In order to prove this, I used a electrometer attached to a metal cup (the metal cup served as the receptor). I attached the electrometer to a cathode tube. The electrometer indicated a negative charge when the cathode rays was directed toward the electrometer. When the ray wasn't directed at the electrometer, there was no indication of a negative charge.

What does it mean?

Since a negative charge was indicated whenever a cathode ray was directed at the electrometer, I concluded that the negative charge must be a property of the cathode rays.


My second experiment used the discovery in the first experiment and investigated whether the negatively charged rays were affected by an electrical field. In this experiment, I used a cathode tube and attached charged plates onto the tube. As I thought, the rays bent in accordance to the charges of the plates.

What does it mean?

This experiment provides support that the cathode rays are negatively charged. When the plate was negatively charged, the cathode ray was repulsed. When the plate was positively charged, the cathode ray was attracted.


The third experiment involves the mass-to-charge ratio of the cathode rays. I measured how much the rays were deflected by a magnetic field and the energy the rays carried. The numbers that I found were one thousand times lower than that of the hydrogen atom! Therefore, there must be extremely light or highly charged particles present.

What does it mean?

The cathode rays must be made of some other particle. I called these particles "corpucles". Nice name isn't it? >:). These "corpucles" came from within the atom. Therefore, the atom is divisible! YAY! I'm a genious aren't I? :D.



Conclusion: The Plum Pudding Model (YUM!)

From these experiments, I, J.J. Thomson, am proud to announce my plum pudding model! I postulated that an atom is neutral so it consisted of a diffuse cloud of positive charge with the negative electrons embedded randomly in it. This is called the Plum Pudding Model because the electrons were similar to raisins in plum pudding, and the pudding represented the uniform, positively charged sphere.