Histories of Discovery

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.