DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONS

• Hundred years ago, amidst glowing glass tubes

and the hum of electricity, the British physicist
J.J Thomson. was venturing into the interior of
the atom. At the Cavendish Laboratory at
Cambridge University, Thomson was
experimenting with currents of electricity inside
empty glass tubes. He was investigating a long-
standing puzzle known as "cathode rays." His
experiments prompted him to make a bold
proposal: these mysterious rays are streams of
particles much smaller than atoms, they are in J.J Thomson
fact minuscule pieces of atoms. He called these
particles "corpuscles," and suggested that they
might make up all of the matter in atoms. It was
startling to imagine a particle residing inside the
atom--most people thought that the atom was
indivisible, the most fundamental unit of
matter.

Cathode ray tube

• During the 1880s and ’90s scientists searched
cathode rays for the carrier of the electrical properties in
matter. Their work culminated in the discovery by English
physicist J.J. Thomson of the electron in 1897. The
existence of the electron showed that the 2,000-year-old
conception of the atom as a homogeneous particle was
wrong and that in fact the atom has a complex structure.
• Cathode-ray studies began in 1854 when
Heinrich Geissler, a glassblower and technical assistant
to the German physicist Julius Plücker, improved the
vacuum tube. Plücker discovered cathode rays in 1858
by sealing two electrodes inside the tube, evacuating the
air, and forcing electric current between the electrodes.
He found a green glow on the wall of his glass tube and
attributed it to rays emanating from the cathode. In
1869, with better vacuums, Plücker’s pupil
Johann W. Hittorf saw a shadow cast by an object placed
in front of the cathode. The shadow proved that the
cathode rays originated from the cathode. The English
physicist and chemist William Crookes investigated
cathode rays in 1879 and found that they were bent by a
magnetic field; the direction of deflection suggested that
they were negatively charged particles. As the
luminescence did not depend on what gas had been in
the vacuum or what metal the electrodes were made of,
he surmised that the rays were a property of the electric
current itself. As a result of Crookes’s work, cathode rays
were widely studied, and the tubes came to be called
Crookes tubes
 CANAL RAYS
Anode rays (or Canal rays) were observed
in experiments by a German scientist,
Eugen Goldstein, in 1886. Goldstein used a
gas discharge tube which had a perforated
cathode. A "ray" is produced in the holes
(canals) in the cathode and travels in a
direction opposite to the "cathode rays,"
which are streams of electrons. Goldstein
called these positive rays "Kanalstrahlen" -
canal rays because it looks like they are
passing through a canal. In 1907 a study of
how this "ray" was deflected in a
magnetic field, revealed that the particles
making up the ray were not all the same
mass. The lightest, formed when there
was a little hydrogen in the tube, was
calculated to be 1837 times as massive as
an electron. They were protons
 Discovery of the Neutron
• It is remarkable that the neutron was not
discovered until 1932 when James Chadwick
used scattering data to calculate the mass of
this neutral particle. Since the time of
Rutherford it had been known that the
atomic mass number A of nuclei is a bit more
than twice the atomic number Z for most
atoms and that essentially all the mass of the
atom is concentrated in the relatively tiny
nucleus. As of about 1930 it was presumed
that the fundamental particles were protons
and electrons, but that required that
somehow a number of electrons were bound
in the nucleus to partially cancel the charge
of A protons. But by this time it was known
from the uncertainty principle and from "
particle-in-a-box" type confinement
calculations that there just wasn't enough
energy available to contain electrons in the
nucleus.
J. J. Thomson's raisin bread model
(plum pudding model)

• J. J. Thomson considered that the

structure of an atom is something
like a raisin bread, so that his
atomic model is sometimes called
the raisin bread model. He
assumed that the basic body of an
atom is a spherical object
containing N electrons confined in
homogeneous jellylike but relatively
massive positive charge distribution
whose total charge cancels that of
the N electrons. The schematic
drawing of this model is shown in
the following figure. Thomson's
model is sometimes dubbed a
plum pudding model.
 RUTHERFORD’S ALPHA
SCATTERING EXPERIMENT
• In the years 1909-1911 Ernest Ruthefordand
his students - Hans Geiger (1882-1945) and
Ernest Marsden conducted some
experiments to search the problem of alpha
particles scattering by the thin gold-leaf.
Rutheford knew that the particles contain the
2e charge. The experiment caused the
creation of the new model of atom - the
"planetary" model.
    Rutheford suggested to hit the gold-leaf
(picture no. 1) with fast alpha particles from
the source 214Po. (The source R was in the
lead lining F). The particles felt from the
source on the gold-leaf E and were observed
by the microscope M. The whole experiment
was in the metal lining A and was covered
with the glass plate P. The instrument was
attached to the footing B. The gold leaf was
about 5*10-7 meter thick. The scientist knew
that reckoning the scattering angle could say
much about the structure of atoms of the
gold-leaf.
•   Rutheford made a theoretical analysis of
angles of scattering in accordance with
Thomson's theory of atom and in accordance
with his own theory. He assumed that atom
consisted of positive charged nucleus and
negative charged electrons circling around
the nucleus. Then his theoretic calculations
he compared with the experiment result.
Alpha particles going through atom created
in accordance with the "plum cake" model
wouldn't be strong abberated because the
electric field in that atom wouldn't be strong.
In the model created by Rutheford the field is
much stronger near to the nucleus, so some
of alpha particles are much more abberated.
The other going in the far distance to the
nucleus are almost not at all abberated. The
probability that any alpha particle will hit the
nucleus is small but there is such a chance.
PLANETARY MODEL OF ATOM BY
BOHR
• The Bohr Model is probably familar as • This similarity between a planetary
the "planetary model" of the atom model and the Bohr Model of the atom
illustrated in the adjacent figure that, for ultimately arises because the attractive
example, is used as a symbol for atomic gravitational force in a solar system and
energy (a bit of a misnomer, since the the attractive Coulomb (electrical) force
energy in "atomic energy" is actually the between the positively charged nucleus
energy of the nucleus, rather than the and the negatively charged electrons in
entire atom). In the Bohr Model the an atom are mathematically of the same
neutrons and protons (symbolized by red form. (The form is the same, but the
and blue balls in the adjacent image) intrinsic strength of the Coulomb
occupy a dense central region called the interaction is much larger than that of
nucleus, and the electrons orbit the the gravitational interaction; in addition,
nucleus much like planets orbiting the there are positive and negative electrical
Sun (but the orbits are not confined to a charges so the Coulomb interaction can
plane as is approximately true in the be either attractive or repulsive, but
Solar System). The adjacent image is not gravitation is always attractive in our
to scale since in the realistic case the present Universe.)
radius of the nucleus is about 100,000
times smaller than the radius of the
entire atom, and as far as we can tell
electrons are point particles without a
physical extent
 QUANTUM MECHANICAL MODEL
• According to the Principles of Quantum Mechanics electrons are
distributed around the nucleus in "probability regions". These
probability regions are called "atomic orbitals". According to Quantum
Mechanics, these orbitals are mathematically defined and are
described by a uniquely different math function for each electron in
the atom called an "eigen function" and a differential equation
generated by the following equation:

• H(eigen function) = Energy ( eigen function)

• The H in the above equation stands for a mathematical operator called
the Hamiltonian. We should be familiar with math operators since we
have been dealing with them since grade school. The addition
operator has to operate upon two numbers one that appears on its left
and the other on its right. For example the addition operator operates
upon the number 4 and 3 and the result of that operation as all knows
would be 7. We have subtraction, multiplier, division,common log,
natural log,exponentiation,etc. The Hamiltonian operator is kinda like
these but much more complex. The result of the Hamiltonian operator
operating on the eigen function of an electron is to generate a
differential equation. Differential equations often have more than one
root or solution which is not new to those who have had a first year
algebra course where quadratic equations are studied. However, one
property of differential equations that might be new to you is the fact
that differential equations cannot be solved exactly. We must use
approximation methods to extract any roots out of the equation, and
those roots or solutions will be approximate solutions.