Atoms and rays : an introduction to modern views on atomic structure & radiation / by Sir Oliver Lodge.
- Oliver Lodge
- Date:
- 1924
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Atoms and rays : an introduction to modern views on atomic structure & radiation / by Sir Oliver Lodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
45/220 (page 39)
![m] Grouping of Electrons all the familiar objects which now appeal to our senses are really composed of a multitude of electrical charges, and of nothing else; or at least if there is anything else, the burden of proof rests on the asserter. The electrons themselves, however, though called upon to explain the greater part of the phenomena known as electric charge, electric current, magnetism, and light, are incompetent to explain “ matter.’’ That is dependent mainly on the identity of the positive charge, which long remained an unknown puzzle, but which is now beginning to give up its secret. The atom of matter is now almost universally regarded as a central positively charged nucleus, surrounded by a definite assemblage, not a crowd but an orderly array, of electrons; the number of which differs in the different atoms, according to the qualities of the nucleus which they surround. Some think that the surrounding group of electrons are stationary, and, as it were, crystallised into position, under the action of some, at present unknown, forces. This may be called the chemical view. It is upheld, and ingeniously developed, by Professors Lang¬ muir and Lewis in America. Others regard them as subject to the laws of dynamics, that is to say, to the kind of laws which were applied by Newton in Astronomy; and therefore necessarily revolving round their attracting centre in regular orbits, as the planets revolve round the sun. Physicists nearly all take this kinetic view of the constitution of the atom; and Professor Bohr has elaborated this theory with remarkable skill. Which is right, for our immediate purpose, does not matter. What all agree is that there is a nucleus, with a known and definite positive charge, and that the electrons surrounding it are sufficiently numerous exactly to neutralise that positive charge, at any reasonable distance from the normal atom. A chemically active atom will have one or more electrons too many, or too few. And this excess or](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29927997_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
