The anomalous magnetic moment of the electron is of great significance in the study of elementary particles and quantum electrodynamics. The history of its discovery is in large part the story of a technique—the use of molecular beams—which was not invented for the specific purpose but which did, by permitting a discrepancy to appear where none was expected, answer an unasked question.
THE ELECTRON is one of the fundamental particles in the universe and is likely to remain one. It is as abundant as any other particle with the possible exception of the neutrino. There may be more neutrinos around, but I am not expert on that question. The electron has a definite charge and a definite rest mass.
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References
1. Reprints of both Thomson’s and Millikan’s papers appear in Great Experiments in Physics. Morris Shamos, Ed. Henry Holt, New York, 1959.
2. As is true of almost every major event in the history of physics, the proposals of Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck were not made without some previous provocative suggestions. See, for instance, Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, Vol. II, pages 133, 134. Harper, New York, 1960.
6. The emphasis on the molecular‐beam magnetic‐resonance method as a generalized spectrometric procedure is not made in the early papers. In 1939 Rabi, Millman, Kusch, and Zacharias (Phys. Rev. 55, 526) discussed the trajectories of molecules in a system of inhomogeneous magnetic fields and, very importantly, the process of changing the orientation of a magnetic dipole in a magnetic field.
9. The use of the two‐wire system for producing inhomogeneous magnetic fields with precisely calculable properties was described by Rabi, Kellogg and Zacharias in 1934. The extrapolation of the system to iron magnets in which much higher fields would be produced was described by Millman, Rabi and Zacharias in 1938. (Phys. Rev. 53, 384).
Inside certain quantum systems, where randomness was thought to lurk, researchers—after a 40-year journey—have found order and unique wave patterns that stubbornly survive.