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Department of Physics

The Cavendish Laboratory
 

J. J. Thomson

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J.J. Thomson as a child, about 1861.
(From Lord Rayleigh's biography of Thomson)


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Routh and his pupils for the Mathematical Tripos of January 1880. Thomson is third from the right in the back row; Larmor is second from the left in the row. At the time there was no supervision for undergraduates. Instead, those aspiring to a high place in the Mathematical Tripos went to a `coach', who provided intensive teaching. Routh was the most famous coach, and the period 1855-1888 he taught 27 Senior Wranglers. Each pupil paid £36 p.a., which was a large sum for a poor student like Thomson, but he though `the teaching was worth the expense'.
(From Thomson's autobiography)


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© copyright the Cavendish Laboratory.

The research students of the Cavendish Laboratory in June 1897. Thomson is fourth from the left in the front row, Rutherford is at the right-hand end of the row, and C.T.R. Wilson, the inventor of the cloud chamber, is second from the left in the back row.


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© copyright the Cavendish Laboratory.

J.J. Thomson, then Cavendish Professor, c1890.


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© copyright the Cavendish Laboratory.

Thomson giving a lecture demonstration in 1909. The glass discharge tube on the right was presented to Thomson by C.F. Braun, the inventor of the cathode-ray tube.


© Copyright 1997, G.L. Squires.