RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS
College—at that time very few had—and I came to Trinity because my teacher happened to be a Trinity man.
I was lucky again in my opportunities. New discoveries were made which supplied new and more powerful instruments for my researches just at the time I wanted them. Again, I have been blessed with remarkably good health. I began badly—for some months after I was born I was not expected to live—but since then I have very seldom been ill. I cannot remember any day in the last sixty years when my work has been interrupted through bad health.
Part of the account of the Cavendish Laboratory given in this book is taken from a chapter I wrote in 1910 for The History of the Cavendish Laboratory, a book which has been long out of print. The chapter, " Physics in My Time " does not profess to give an account of all the discoveries made between 1870 and the beginning of the war, a period which is one of the most prolific in the history of Physics and would have required not a chapter but several volumes. I have confined myself to those which had special connection with my own work or that of my pupils, or of which I saw something while they were in progress.
I wish to thank my wife and daughter for their valuable assistance in reading the proofs, my daughter for preparing the Name Index, and my publishers for much valuable advice and for the care they have taken in the preparation of this volume.
J. J. THOMSON
TRINITY LODGE
CAMBRIDGE November 1936