which scientist discovered the electron?

The electron is credited as being discovered by J. J. Thomson in 1897 through his experiments with cathode rays.

Who discovered the electron?

• The scientist who discovered the electron was J. J. Thomson, a British physicist working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

• In 1897, Thomson showed that cathode rays are streams of tiny, negatively charged particles much lighter than atoms, which were later called electrons.

A tiny backstory

• Thomson studied mysterious “cathode rays” in vacuum tubes and found they could be deflected by electric and magnetic fields, proving they carried negative charge.

• By measuring how much these rays bent, he calculated that the particles were over 1,000 times lighter than a hydrogen atom, revealing a new subatomic particle.

Fun historical detail

• Thomson originally called these particles “corpuscles”; the term “electron” had been coined earlier by George Johnstone Stoney for a unit of electric charge and was later adopted for this particle.

• His discovery overturned the idea of the atom as indivisible and helped launch modern atomic physics and electronics.

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