Assertion: The specific charge of positive rays is not constant.
Reason: The mass of ions varies with speed.

The gravitational attraction between electron and proton in a hydrogen atom is weaker than the coulomb attraction by a factor of about $10^{-40} .$ An alternative way of looking at this fact is to estimate the radius of the first Bohr orbit of a hydrogen atom if the electron and proton were bound by gravitational attraction. 

A proton is fired from very far away towards a nucleus with charge $Q=120 \ e$, where $e$ is the electronic charge. It makes a closest approach of $10 \ fm$ to the nucleus. The de Brogle wavelength (in units of $fm$ ) of the proton at its start is :

(take the proton mass, $m _0=(5 / 3) \times 10^{-27} kg , h / e =4.2 \times 10^{-15} J / s / C ; \frac{1}{4 \pi \varepsilon_0}=9 \times 10^9 m / F ; 1 fm =10^{-15} m$ ) 

In an atom for the electron to revolve around the nucleus, the necessary centripetal force is obtained from the following force exerted by the nucleus on the electron

Classically, an electron can be in any orbit around the nucleus of an atom. Then what determines the typical atomic size? Why is an atom not, say, thousand times bigger than its typical size? The question had greatly puzzled Bohr before he arrived at his famous model of the atom that you have learnt in the text. To simulate what he might well have done before his discovery, let us play as follows with the basic constants of nature and see if we can get a quantity with the dimensions of length that is roughly equal to the known size of an atom $\left(\sim 10^{-10} \;m \right)$

$(a)$ Construct a quantity with the dimensions of length from the fundamental constants $e, m_{e},$ and $c .$ Determine its numerical value.

$(b)$ You will find that the length obtained in $(a)$ is many orders of magnitude smaller than the atomic dimensions. Further, it involves $c .$ But energies of atoms are mostly in non-relativistic domain where $c$ is not expected to play any role. This is what may have suggested Bohr to discard $c$ and look for 'something else' to get the right atomic size. Now, the Planck's constant $h$ had already made its appearance elsewhere. Bohr's great insight lay in recognising that $h, m_{e},$ and $e$ will yield the right atomic size. Construct a quantity with the dimension of length from $h m_e$, and $e$ and confirm that its numerical value has indeed the correct order of magnitude.