George Johnstone Stoney
George Johnstone Stoney | |
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Queen's College Galway, Queen's University of Ireland |
George Johnstone Stoney FRS (15 February 1826 – 5 July 1911) was an Irish physicist. He is most famous for introducing the term electron as the "fundamental unit quantity of electricity".[1]
He had introduced the concept, though not the word, as early as 1874, initially naming it "electrine",[2] and the word itself came in 1891.[3][4][5] He published around 75 scientific papers during his lifetime.
Education and employment
Stoney was born at Oakley Park, near
From 1852 to 1857, Stoney was professor of physics at
Scientific output
Stoney published seventy-five scientific papers in a variety of journals, but chiefly in the journals of the Royal Dublin Society. He made significant contributions to cosmic physics and to the theory of gases. He estimated the number of molecules in a cubic millimetre of gas, at room temperature and pressure, from data obtained from the kinetic theory of gases. Stoney's most important scientific work was the conception and calculation of the magnitude of the "atom of electricity". In 1891, he proposed the term "electron" to describe the fundamental unit of electrical charge,[7] and his contributions to research in this area laid the foundations for the eventual discovery of the particle by J. J. Thomson in 1897.
His scientific work was carried out in his spare time.[8] A heliostat designed by Stoney is in the Science Museum Group collection.[9]
Stoney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1861 on the basis of being the author of papers on "The Propagation of Waves", "On the Rings seen in Fibrous Specimens of Calc Spar", and Molecular Physics, published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, et cetera, Distinguished for his acquaintance with the science of Astronomy & General Physics.[10]
Stoney units
Stoney proposed the first system of natural units in 1881.
Like Stoney, Planck independently derived a system of natural units (of similar scale) some decades after him, using different constants of nature.
Hermann Weyl made a notable attempt to construct a unified theory by associating a gravitational unit of charge with the Stoney length. Weyl's theory led to significant mathematical innovations but his theory is generally thought to lack physical significance.[12][13]
Family
Stoney married his cousin, Margaret Sophia Stoney, by whom he had had two sons and three daughters.
One of Stoney's sons, George Gerald Stoney
His brother was the engineer Bindon Blood Stoney.
He was second cousin of the grandfather of Ethel Sara Turing, mother of Alan Turing.
Legacy
Stoney received an
Stoney and FitzGerald were in regular communication on scientific matters. In addition, on political matters, both Stoney and FitzGerald were active opponents of the
In 1902, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[16]
Craters on
See also
- Basic concepts of quantum mechanics
- Planck units
- Stoney units
References
- ^ a b "George Johnstone Stoney 1826–1911". Daily Express. 6 July 1911. Archived from the original on 12 July 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
- ^ "The man who 'invented' the electron". Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ^ Stoney Uses the Term Electron
- ^ Phil. Mag.Vol. 5, no. 11. pp. 381–390.
- ISBN 0-7503-0866-4.
- Phil. Mag.5. 38: 418–420.
- ^ "Obituary Notice from Proceedings of the Royal Society (1912)". The Royal Society. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ^ "Heliostat, contrived by the late G. Johnstone Stoney". Science Museum Group. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
- The Royal Society. Retrieved 22 October 2010.[permanent dead link]
- Bibcode:1983QJRAS..24...24B.
- ^ O'Raifeartaigh L., The Dawning of Gauge Theory, Princeton Uni Press, 1997
- ^ Gorelik G., Hermann Weyl and Large Numbers in Relativistic Cosmology, Einstein Studies in Russia, Ed Balashov Y. and Vizgin V., Boston (Birkhaeuser) 2002
- ^ "Stoney, G. Johnstone". Who's Who: 1936. 1911.
- ^ "University intelligence". The Times. No. 36783. London. 2 June 1902. p. 9.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
Bibliography
- The Infancy of Atomic Physics. Hercules in His Cradle, by Alex Keller. Oxford University 1983. ISBN 9780486149950.
- O'Hara, J. G. (1975). "George Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S., and the Concept of the Electron". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 29 (2): 265–276. S2CID 145353314.
- Stoney, G. J. (1894). "Of the "Electron", or Atom of Electricity". Philosophical Magazine. Series 5. 38: 418–420.
- Barrow, J. D. (1983). "Natural Units Before Planck". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 24: 24. Bibcode:1983QJRAS..24...24B.
- "The Constants of Nature, by John D. Barrow, Jonathan Cape, London 2002.