Canal Rays
In the mid-nineteenth century, Julius Plücker investigated the light emitted in discharge tubes and the influence of magnetic fields on the glow. Later, in 1869, Johann Wilhelm Hittorf studied discharge tubes with energy rays extending from a negative electrode, the cathode. These rays produced a fluorescence when they hit a tube's glass walls, and when interrupted by a solid object they cast a shadow.
Canal rays, also called anode rays, were observed by Eugen Goldstein, in 1886. Goldstein used a gas discharge tube which had a perforated cathode. The rays are 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. 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.
Read more about this topic: History Of Mass Spectrometry
Famous quotes containing the words canal and/or rays:
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)