Abstract

This essay reviews three books—Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics, Flash of the Cathode Rays: A History of J. J. Thomson's Electron, and The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain—broadly concerned with the history of discovery in the physical sciences, two of which focus on the history of the discovery of the electron. The author finds that discovery is a difficult concept at best for contemporary historians of science, and suggests a broader view of discovery may be more productive of useful historical analysis. Review of: Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics, edited by Jed Z. Buchwald and Andrew Warwick (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); Flash of the Cathode Rays: A History of J. J. Thomson's Electron by Per F. Dahl (Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1997); The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain by Crosbie Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).