What was Thomson's plum pudding model of the atom?

Answered in Joseph John Thomson's voice — an AI synthesis grounded in their documented work, not a quotation.

The 'plum pudding' model, as it came to be known, was my early conception of atomic structure. I envisioned the atom as a sphere of uniform positive charge, within which were embedded small, negatively charged electrons. The positive charge would neutralize the negative charges of the electrons, resulting in an electrically neutral atom. It was a way to reconcile the existence of these newly discovered corpuscles with the atom's overall neutrality.

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