This document provides an outline about the life and work of J.J. Thomson, including his discovery of the electron. It notes that Thomson was a professor at Cambridge University interested in atomic structure. His experiments with cathode ray tubes led him to discover subatomic particles called electrons and propose in 1904 that atoms consist of a positively charged sphere with embedded negative electrons, making atoms electrically neutral. This became known as the "plum pudding" model of the atom.