Aggregation and Flow of Solids - Being the Records of an Experimental, Study of the Micro-Structure and Physical Properties of Solids in Various States of Aggregation, 1900-1921 #262741

Twenty years ago the electron theory was in its infancy, and we were almost entirely ignorant of the structure of the atom. No attempt had been made at that time to picture the atom, with its nucleus and electron rings, as an entity of definite form and structure. The atom was generally regarded as a minute particle separated from neighbouring atoms by distances which were enormously large in comparison with the dimensions of the atom itself.