The British physicist Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson (1856–1940) performed a series of experiments in 1897 designed to study the nature of electric discharge in a high-vacuum cathode-ray tube, an area being investigated by many scientists at the time. Thomson's model showed the atom as a positively charged ball of matter with negatively changed electrons floating freely around inside of it. This model showed the atom having no structure. There are also no protons and neutrons in this model. Thomson knew that the atom had positively and negatively charges particles in it he just didn't know how they were arranged. <span>Today's model gives us a much clearer picture of the atom. There is a positively charged center of the atom that is denser than the rest of it called the nucelus. This dense center is made up of positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. Around the outside of the nucleus the electrons are organized on rings. These electrons are arranged in a certain pattern that is the same for all atoms.</span>
<span>J.J. Thomson's experiments with cathode ray tubes showed that all atoms contain tiny negatively charged subatomic particles or electrons.Thomson's plum pudding model of the atom had negatively-charged electrons embedded within a positively-charged soup.Rutherford's gold foil experiment showed that the atom is mostly empty space with a tiny, dense, positively-charged nucleus.Based on these results, Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom.</span>
