The electron, its isolation and measurement and the determination of some of its properties — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The electron, its isolation and measurement and the determination of some of its properties
John Stuart Mill · en
While then it would not be in keeping with the spirit or with the
method of modern science to make any dogmatic assertion about the
existence or non-existence of a sub-electron, it can be asserted with
entire confidence that there has not appeared up to the present a scrap
of evidence for the existence of charges smaller than the electron. If
all of Dr. Ehrenhaft’s assumptions as to the nature of his particles
were correct, then his experiments would mean simply that Einstein’s
Brownian-movement equation is not of universal validity and that the
law of motion of minute charged particles is quite different from
that which he has assumed. It is exceedingly unlikely that either of
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these results can be drawn from his experiments, for Nordlund[132] and
Westgren[133] have apparently verified the Einstein equation in liquids
with very much smaller particles than Dr. Ehrenhaft uses; and, on the
other hand, while I have worked with particles as small as
cm. and with values of as large as
135, which is very much larger than any which appear in the work of Dr.
Ehrenhaft and his pupils, I have thus far found no evidence of a law of
motion essentially different from that which I published in 1913, and
further elaborated and refined in 1923.
There has then appeared up to the present time no evidence whatever
for the existence of a sub-electron. The chapter having to do with its
discussion is now considered for the present at least to have been
closed,[134] but it constitutes an interesting historical document
worthy of study as an illustration on the one hand of the solidity of
the foundations upon which the atomic theory of electricity now rests,
and on the other hand of the severity of the gauntlet of criticism
which new results must run before they gain admission to the body of
established truth in physics.
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CHAPTER IX
THE STRUCTURE OF THE ATOM