Sorry if this isn’t the right place to ask, but I wasn’t getting a response on the chemistry subreddit, so here’s my question:
I want to self teach myself chemistry and have started reading through the seventh edition of "Principles of Modern Chemistry" as listed in the suggested reading section of this subreddit. In section 1.4 they describe Thomson's Cathode Ray Tube experiment to find the charge to mass ratio of an electron. I'm confused as to how some of the equations are set up. For instance, they start with FE =eE=ma, but then they solve for a and get a = (em)E. Shouldn't it be divided by m? Later they use D = .5at^2 and substitute for a with the aforementioned equation as well as t with t = l*v (l for the length of the metal plates deflecting the cathode ray) but when they substitute these in they get D = .5(e/m)*E*(l/v)^2. So this time they get a = (e/m)*e correct but use l/v instead of l*v. Am I missing something here?