CHAPTER VIII. 



HOW THE MASS OF A CORPUSCLE IS DETERMINED : DlSCOV- 

 ERY OF THE ONE THING. 



It will be remembered that ^-=10,000,000. Therefore/ 

 m= ^ Or, since e, as we have determined, has the 



10,000 ,(.)(_) i) 



value of 0.00000000034, m= '* 4 . . And this is the 



J-U^ULHjjU(JU 



weight of a corpuscle. Well, we need not translate this 

 value into a fraction telling us just what portion of a gram 

 the weight of a corpuscle is. It would constitute a dec- 

 imal stretching from one side of the page to the other. 

 What we want particularly to know is the relation between 

 the weight of a corpuscle and the weight of an atom. 



This falls neatly into our hands; for it turns out that 

 the electrical charge on a hyirogen atom is exactly the same, 

 within the limits of experimental error , as the electrical charge 

 on a corpuscle. Now, it will be remembered that the total 



value of ^ for a hydrogen atom is 1,000 times less than the 

 total value of - for a corpuscle. If, therefore, the mass 



of a corpuscle equals 0.00000000034 divided by ten million, 

 and the mass of an atom equals 0.00000000034 divided by 

 ten thousand, it follows that the mass of the hydrogen 

 atom is one thousand times greater than the mass of a cor- 

 puscle ! 



So, starting with a candle flame and a gold-leaf electro- 

 scope, we have been carried irresistibly to the conclusion 

 5 (65) 



