41402MIT.HISTORIESELECTRON 6/11/01 3:42 PM Page 1 Other Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology Histories of the Electron The Birth of Microphysics Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination edited by Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick edited by N. M. Swerdlow In the mid to late 1890s, J. J.Thomson and colleagues Histories of the Electron Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory conducted edited by Frederic L. Holmes and Trevor H. Levere experiments on “cathode rays” (a form of radiation produced within evacuated glass vessels subjected to Isaac Newton’s Natural Philosophy Histories of the Electron electric fields)—the results of which some historians edited by Jed Z. Buchwald and I. Bernard Cohen later viewed as the “discovery” of the electron.This book is both a biography of the electron and a history Natural Particulars The Birth of Microphysics of the microphysical world that it opened up. Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe The book is organized in four parts. The first edited by Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi part, Corpuscles and Electrons, considers the varying accounts of Thomson’s role in the experimental Systems, Experts, and Computers production of the electron. The second part, What The Systems Approach in Management and Engineering,World War II and After Was the Newborn Electron Good For?, examines edited by Agatha C. Hughes and Thomas P.Hughes how scientists used the new entity in physical and chemical investigations. The third part, Electrons Applied and Appropriated, explores the accommo- dation, or lack thereof, of the electron in nuclear physics, chemistry, and electrical science. It follows the electron’s gradual progress from cathode ray to ubiquitous subatomic particle and eponymous enti- Buchwald and Warwick, and Buchwald ty in one of the world’s most successful industries— electronics.The fourth part, Philosophical Electrons, considers the role of the electron in issues of instru- mentalism, epistemology, and realism.The electron, edited by it turns out, can tell us a great deal about how science works. Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick Jed Z. Buchwald is Director of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology and Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Sci- ence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. editors Andrew Warwick is Lecturer in the History of The MIT Press Science at Imperial College, London. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science http://mitpress.mit.edu ,!7IA2G2-acejef!:t;K;k;K;k and Technology 0-262-02494-2 H E Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology Jed Z. Buchwald, general editor, Evelyn Simha, governor Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick, editors, Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics Jed Z. Buchwald and I. Bernard Cohen, editors, Isaac Newton’s Natural Philosophy Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, editors, Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe Frederic L. Holmes and Trevor H. Levere, editors, Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry Agatha C. Hughes and Thomas P. Hughes, editors, Systems, Experts, and Computers: The Systems Approach in Management and Engineering, World War II and After N. M. Swerdlow, editor, Ancient Astronomy and Celestial Divination H E The Birth of Microphysics edited by Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying recording, or information stor- age and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Bembo by Graphic Composition, Inc. in Athens, Georgia with QuarkXPress and printed and bound by in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Histories of the electron : the birth of microphysics / edited by Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick. p. cm. — (Dibner Institute studies in the history of science and technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-02494-2 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Electrons—History. 2. Thomson, J.J. ( Joseph John), Sir, 1856–1940. I. Buchwald, Jed Z. II. Warwick, Andrew. III. Series. QC793.5.E62 H57 2001 539.7´2112´09—dc21 00-046580 C A vii C ix I 1 Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick ICORPUSCLES AND ELECTRONS 19 1 J. J. T E, 1897–1899 21 George E. Smith 2 C E 77 Isobel Falconer 3 T Q M E: T R J. J. T’ “C” E T T 101 Graeme Gooday 4 P V, J. J. T, C C R 135 Benoit Lelong II WHAT WAS THE NEWBORN ELECTRON GOOD FOR? 169 5 T Z E D E 171 Theodore Arabatzis 6 T E, P, U M 195 Helge Kragh C vi 7 O. W. R E T M, 1901–1916 227 Ole Knudsen 8 E G T M: F E B M 255 Walter Kaiser III ELECTRONS APPLIED AND APPROPRIATED 305 9 T E N 307 Laurie M. Brown 10 T E, H, T 327 Lillian Hoddeson and Michael Riordan 11 R C: T E O C, 1900–1940 339 Mary Jo Nye 12 T P’E I A C 363 Kostas Gavroglu IV PHILOSOPHICAL ELECTRONS 401 13 W R D E? 403 Peter Achinstein 14 H M: O R S 425 Margaret Morrison 15 W S P S L H E? 451 Jonathan Bain and John D. Norton 16 T R T U I; , H M D W N K E D S E M? 467 Nicolas Rasmussen and Alan Chalmers I 503 A The essays in this volume originated in discussions at two meetings held in 1997 to celebrate the centenary of the electron’s discovery. The first, held jointly at the Royal Society and the Science Museum in London, was or- ganized by Alan Morton and Andrew Warwick. The second, organized by the editors of this volume, was held at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The editors thank the Royal Society and the Science Museum for the London meeting, and the Dibner Institute for the meeting in Cambridge. They also thank the chair- persons, respondents, and delegates who contributed to the lively discussions that took place at both meetings. C Peter Achinstein is Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Concepts of Science (1968), Law and Explanation (1971), The Nature of Explanation (1983), and Particles and Waves (1991), which received the 1993 Lakatos Award. He is completing a new work entitled The Book of Evidence. Theodore Arabatzis is Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Athens. He is the author of several articles on the history of the concept of the electron and a forthcoming book, tentatively titled Elec- trons and Reality: A Biographical Essay. Jonathan Bain is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Polytechnic Univer- sity in Brooklyn. He has published on topics in the philosophy of spacetime and the philosophy of quantum field theory. Laurie M. Brown is Professor of Physics and Astronomy (emeritus) at Northwestern University. He is the author and editor of many books and ar- ticles on the history of modern physics, including The Origin of the Concept of Nuclear Physics (with Helmut Rechenberg) and Twentieth Century Physics (with Sir Brian Pippard and Abraham Pais). Alan Chalmers is Research Fellow in the Philosophy Department, Flinders University, South Australia. He is the author of What Is This Thing Called Sci- ence? (3rd ed., 1999) and Science and Its Fabrication (1990). Isobel Falconer is an independent scholar and the coauthor (with E. A. Davis) of J. J. Thomson and the Discovery of the Electron (1997). Kostas Gavroglu is Professor of History of Science at the University of Athens. His books include Fritz London: A Scientific Biography (1995), and he is currently working on a book on the history of artificial cold. He is also the director of a project to digitize all the scientific and philosophical books and manuscripts written in Greek from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth (www.space.noa.gr/hellinomnimon). C x Graeme Gooday is Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. He has published on experimental science and elec- trical engineering in the nineteenth century, and his first book, The Morals of Measurement: Accuracy, Irony and Trust in Late Victorian Electrical Practice, will soon be published by Cambridge University Press. Lillian Hoddeson is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and historian at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. Her most recent book, with Michael Riordan, is Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Informa- tion Age (1997). She is also a coauthor of Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years (1993) and Out of the Crystal Maze: Chap- ters from the History of Solid State Physics (1992), as well as coeditor of The Birth of Particle Physics (1983), Pions to Quarks (1989), and The Rise of the Standard Model (1997). Walter Kaiser holds the Chair for the History of Technology at the Uni- versity of Technology of Aachen. He has written on the history of electro- dynamics and solid state physics, and, more generally, on the history and philosophy of science and the history of technology. He is the author of The- orien der Elektrodynamik im 19. Jahrhundert (1981); has edited Ludwig Boltz- mann’s Vorlesungen über Maxwells Theorie der Elektricität und des Lichtes (1982); and has coauthored the Propyläen Technikgeschichte, vol. 5, 1914–1990 (1992 and 1997).