who performed the cathode ray experiment

Thomson, involved an air-tight glass tube with a cathode (negative electrode) and an anode (positive electrode).

Why couldn't the ray have consisted out of some 'electric fluid' (like a continuous density distribution)? It seems like his conclusions are predicated on the supposition that the ray consists of particles (so we can't appeal to this experiment as a demonstration of electrons because it would be circular reasoning). The cathode ray experiments, performed by J.J. My issue here is that I don't understand why his experiment demonstrates the existence of particles to begin with. Thomson carried out three experiments to come to his conclusion. Thomson suspected that the traces of gas remaining in the tube were being turned into an electrical conductor by the cathode rays themselves. He experimented with currents of electricity inside empty glass tubes. Thomson had shown that cathode rays behave as one would expect negatively charged material particles to behave. These were connected to an electrometer to measure electrical charge. This way, he was able to deduce the electron-to-mass ratio $e/m$, and conclude that if the ray consisted of a stream of particles, then each particle in the stream is ~1000x lighter than the hydrogen atom. What was the Cathode Ray Experiment Thomson started the Cathode Ray experiment in the 1894 at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Thomson built a cathode ray tube with a pair of metal cylinders with a slit.

Thompson used a magnet and capacitor plates to look at the effects of the electric and magnetic fields on the cathode ray.

Who performed the cathode ray experiment