Experiments With Crookes Tubes
Crookes tubes were used in dozens of historic experiments to try to find out what cathode rays were. There were two theories: British scientists Crookes and Cromwell Varley believed they were 'corpuscles' or 'radiant matter', that is, electrically charged atoms. German researchers E. Wiedemann, Heinrich Hertz, and Eugen Goldstein believed they were 'aether vibrations', some new form of electromagnetic waves, and were separate from what carried the current through the tube. The debate continued until J. J. Thomson measured their mass, proving they were a previously unknown negatively charged particle, which he called a 'corpuscle' but was later named electron.
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