Editing Electron (section)

=== Discovery of two kinds of charges ===
In the early 1700s, French chemist [[Charles François de Cisternay du Fay|Charles François du Fay]] found that if a charged gold-leaf is repulsed by glass rubbed with silk, then the same charged gold-leaf is attracted by amber rubbed with wool. From this and other results of similar types of experiments, du Fay concluded that electricity consists of two [[Aether theories|electrical fluids]], ''vitreous'' fluid from glass rubbed with silk and ''resinous'' fluid from amber rubbed with wool.  These two fluids can neutralize each other when combined.<ref name=Benjamin /><ref>
{{cite book
 | last = Keithley
 | first = J.F.
 | year = 1999
 | title = The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements: From 500 B.C. to the 1940s
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uwgNAtqSHuQC&pg=PR7
 | publisher = [[IEEE|IEEE Press]]
 | pages = 19–20
 | isbn = 978-0-7803-1193-0
 | access-date = 2020-08-25
 | archive-date = 2022-02-04
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220204082420/https://books.google.com/books?id=uwgNAtqSHuQC&pg=PR7
 | url-status = live
}}</ref> American scientist [[Ebenezer Kinnersley]] later also independently reached the same conclusion.<ref name="Cajori1917">
{{cite book
 |first=Florian |last=Cajori
 |title=A History of Physics in Its Elementary Branches: Including the Evolution of Physical Laboratories
 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofphysics00cajo
 |year=1917 |publisher=Macmillan
}}</ref>{{rp|118}} A decade later [[Benjamin Franklin]] proposed that electricity was not from different types of electrical fluid, but a single electrical fluid showing an excess (+) or deficit (−). He gave them the modern [[electric charge|charge]] nomenclature of positive and negative respectively.<ref>
{{cite web
 | title = Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
 | url = https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/FranklinBenjamin.html
 | work = [[ScienceWorld|Eric Weisstein's World of Biography]]
 | publisher = [[Wolfram Research]]
 | access-date = 2010-12-16
 | df = dmy-all
 | archive-date = 2013-08-27
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130827114343/http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/FranklinBenjamin.html
 | url-status = live
}}</ref> Franklin thought of the charge carrier as being positive, but he did not correctly identify which situation was a surplus of the charge carrier, and which situation was a deficit.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1=Myers | first1 = R.L.
 | year = 2006
 | title = The Basics of Physics
 | url = https://archive.org/details/basicsofphysics0000myer/page/242
 |url-access=registration
 | publisher = [[Greenwood Publishing Group]]
 | page=242
 | isbn = 978-0-313-32857-2
}}</ref>

Between 1838 and 1851, British natural philosopher [[Richard Laming]] developed the idea that an atom is composed of a core of matter surrounded by subatomic particles that had unit [[electric charge]]s.<ref name="farrar">
{{cite journal
 | last = Farrar | first = W.V.
 | year = 1969
 | title = Richard Laming and the Coal-Gas Industry, with His Views on the Structure of Matter
 | journal = [[Annals of Science]]
 | volume = 25 | pages = 243–254
 | doi =10.1080/00033796900200141
 | issue = 3
}}</ref> Beginning in 1846, German physicist [[Wilhelm Eduard Weber]] theorized that electricity was composed of positively and negatively charged fluids, and their interaction was governed by the [[Inverse-square law|inverse square law]]. After studying the phenomenon of [[electrolysis]] in 1874, Irish physicist [[George Johnstone Stoney]] suggested that there existed a "single definite quantity of electricity", the charge of a [[Valence (chemistry)|monovalent]] [[ion]]. He was able to estimate the value of this elementary charge ''e'' by means of [[Faraday's laws of electrolysis]].<ref>
{{cite journal
 | last = Barrow | first = J.D.
 | year = 1983
 | title = Natural Units Before Planck
 | journal = [[Astronomy & Geophysics|Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society]]
 | volume = 24 | pages = 24–26
 | bibcode = 1983QJRAS..24...24B
}}</ref> However, Stoney believed these charges were permanently attached to atoms and could not be removed. In 1881, German physicist [[Hermann von Helmholtz]] argued that both positive and negative charges were divided into elementary parts, each of which "behaves like atoms of electricity".<ref name="arabatzis">
{{cite book
 | last = Arabatzis
 | first = T.
 | year = 2006
 | title = Representing Electrons: A Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rZHT-chpLmAC&pg=PA70
 | pages = 70–74, 96
 | publisher = University of Chicago Press
 | isbn = 978-0-226-02421-9
 | access-date = 2020-08-25
 | archive-date = 2021-01-07
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210107160308/https://books.google.com/books?id=rZHT-chpLmAC&pg=PA70
 | url-status = live
}}</ref>

Stoney initially coined the term ''electrolion'' in 1881. Ten years later, he switched to ''electron'' to describe these elementary charges, writing in 1894: "...&nbsp;an estimate was made of the actual amount of this most remarkable fundamental unit of electricity, for which I have since ventured to suggest the name ''electron''". A 1906 proposal to change to ''electrion'' failed because [[Hendrik Lorentz]] preferred to keep ''electron''.<ref>
{{cite book
 | first=Sōgo
 | last=Okamura
 | title=History of Electron Tubes
 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VHFyngmO95YC&pg=PR11
 | access-date=29 May 2015
 | year=1994
 | publisher=IOS Press
 | isbn=978-90-5199-145-1
 | page=11
 | quote=In 1881, Stoney named this electromagnetic 'electrolion'. It came to be called 'electron' from 1891. [...] In 1906, the suggestion to call cathode ray particles 'electrions' was brought up but through the opinion of Lorentz of Holland 'electrons' came to be widely used.
 | archive-date=11 May 2016
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160511214552/https://books.google.com/books?id=VHFyngmO95YC&pg=PR11
 | url-status=live
}}</ref><ref name="GJStoney">
{{cite journal
 | last = Stoney
 | first = G.J.
 | year = 1894
 | title = Of the "Electron," or Atom of Electricity
 | journal = [[Philosophical Magazine]]
 | volume = 38
 | issue = 5
 | pages = 418–420
 | doi = 10.1080/14786449408620653
 | url = https://zenodo.org/record/1431209
 | access-date = 2019-08-25
 | archive-date = 2020-10-31
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201031080323/https://zenodo.org/record/1431209
 | url-status = live
}}</ref> The word ''electron'' is a combination of the words ''<u>electr</u>ic'' and ''i<u>on</u>''.<ref>"electron, n.2". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. Accessed 12 April 2013 [https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60302?rskey=owKYbt&result=2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427080603/https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60302?rskey=owKYbt&result=2|date=2021-04-27}}</ref> The suffix [[wikt:-on|-''on'']] which is now used to designate other subatomic particles, such as a proton or neutron, is in turn derived from electron.<ref>
{{cite book
 | editor-last = Soukhanov | editor-first = A.H.
 | year = 1986
 | title = Word Mysteries & Histories
 | page = 73
 | publisher = Houghton Mifflin
 | isbn = 978-0-395-40265-8
}}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 | editor-last = Guralnik | editor-first = D.B.
 | year = 1970
 | title = Webster's New World Dictionary
 | publisher = Prentice Hall
 | page = 450
}}</ref>