Electrical Atoms and the Electron

Abstract

One important result of physicists’ increased understanding of electricity and magnetism was the recognition that atoms are electrical in nature. In the 1830s Michael Faraday’s studies of the flow of electricity through solutions contributed evidence that electricity is itself “atomic,” i.e., made up of small indivisible units of electric charge. In 1894, G.J. Stoney proposed the word “electron” as the name for such a natural unit of charge. In 1897 the British physicist J.J. Thomson used electric and magnetic deflection to establish the existence of the tiny particle of electricity that we now call “the electron.” His work also showed that the electron is a fundamental component of every atom and intimately related to its chemical properties. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century the American physicist Robert A. Millikan had measured the electron’s mass and charge to within one percent.