Abstract
In 1997 we celebrated the centenary of Thomson’s (1897) ‘Cathode Rays’ that is conveniently taken as marking the discovery of the electron, our first fundamental particle. The electron is not just our first fundamental particle, but one of the earliest microphysical entities to acquire secure status in modern physics. We see how early electrons acquired this status if we recall the status of the humble atom at this same time. While atoms had been a subject of interest in science and natural philosophy for millennia, their existence and properties remained clouded in debate and clear demonstrations of their existence and properties only emerged in the early part of this century when the same occurred for electrons.
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Norton, J.D. (2000). How We Know about Electrons. In: Nola, R., Sankey, H. (eds) After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3935-9_2
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