William Crookes, English Chemist and Physicist

William Crookes, English Chemist and Physicist

William Crookes (June 17, 1832 - April 4, 1919) was an English chemist and physicist who worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube. In 1861, Crookes discovered a previously unknown element with a bright green emission line in its spectrum and named the element thallium made with the help of spectroscopy. Crookes also identified the first known sample of helium, in 1895. He was the inventor of the Crookes radiometer (a system of vanes, each blackened on one side and polished on the other, is set in rotation when exposed to radiant energy) which today is made and sold as a novelty item. He also developed the Crookes tubes, investigating cathode rays. In his research of the conduction of electricity in low pressure gases, he discovered that as the pressure was lowered, the negative electrode (cathode) appeared to emit rays (the so-called cathode rays, now known to be a stream of free electrons, and used in cathode ray display devices). He was a pioneer in the construction and use of vacuum tubes for the study of physical phenomena. He was one of the first scientists to investigate what are now called plasmas and identified it as the fourth state of matter in 1879. He also devised one of the first instruments for the study of nuclear radioactivity, the spinthariscope. Crookes was knighted in 1897. He lived to be 86 and died of natural causes.

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