The discharge of electricity through gases : lectures delivered on the occasion of the sesquicentennial of Princeton University / by J.J. Thomson ; with diagrams.
- J. J. Thomson
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The discharge of electricity through gases : lectures delivered on the occasion of the sesquicentennial of Princeton University / by J.J. Thomson ; with diagrams. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![gas through which R3ntgen rays have passed, the author and Mr, E. Rutherford ! used the following arrangement. A closed aluminium vessel was placed in front of the window through which the rays passed. A tube through which air could be blown by a pair of bellows led. into this vessel; a plug of glass wool was placed in this tube to keep out dust, and a gas meter was placed in series with the tube to measure the rate at which the air passed through. The air left the aluminium vessel through another tube, at the end of which was placed the arrangement for measuring the rate at which electricity leaked through the gas. This was usually a wire charged, to a high potential placed, in the axis of an earth-connected metal tube through which the stream of gas passed; the wire was connected with one pair of quadrants of an electrometer. The wire was carefully shielded from the direct effect of the rays, and there was no leak unless a current of air was passing through the apparatus ; when, however, the current of air was flowing, there was a considerable leak, showing that the air after exposure to the rays retained its conducting properties for the time (about .5 second) it took to pass from the aluminium vessel to the charged electrode. i J. J. Thomson and E. Rutherford, Phil. Mag. [5] 42, p. 392, 1896.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21080938_0050.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
