William Crookes
By: Jacqueline Guevara
WILLIAM CROOKES
William Crookes was an English chemist who created Crookes tube, discovered the element thallium, invented the spinthariscope, Crookes tube, radiometer, and helped with many scientific breakthroughs.
Personal life
William Crookes was a British chemist, born June 17, 1832 and died April 4 1919. He was the eldest of 16 children. When he was younger, education was a little limited. His father wanted him to be a architect, but he chose to go into industrial chemistry instead. At the age of 15, he attended Royal College of Chemistry in 1848 where he started his researches in chemistry. From 1850 to 1854 he was an assistant at the college and began to manage his own work including the research of spectroscopy. In 1854 he became the Superintendent of the Meteorological Department at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. Also in 1855 he was assigned to be the lecturer at the Chester College of Science. In 1859 he founded the Chemical News which was managed and edited by his until 1906. He built and furnished his own laboratory to devote his life to his research. Crookes got married in 1856, but only lasted until the death of his wife in 1917. They had 10 children, Crookes then later died in 1919.
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Sir William Crookes
element thallium
Crookes tube
Though the glass wall two electrodes (an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit) are passed. When a high voltage is added to them, electrons are released from a cathode (an electrode from which a conventional current leaves a polarized electrical device) and are accelerated toward the anode (an electrode through which a conventional flows into a polarized device).
Cathode Ray Tube
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Radiometer
Sir William Crooks invented the radiometer to measure heat and light. Photons (the quanta of light) bouncing off the silver side will push the vanes, causing them to rotate. The light sides are advancing from the radiation while the dark sides are retreating. The radiometer will react differently to different light sources
Spinthariscope
a device made specifically to see flashes of light
Inside spinthariscope
Crookes Radiometer - under different light