Discussing the existence of electrons, philosopher of science Ian Hacking has written, “So far as I'm concerned, if you can spray them, then they are real.” He went on to elaborate this view: “We are completely convinced of the reality of electrons when we set out to build—and often enough succeed in building—new kinds of device that use various well‐understood causal properties of electrons to interfere in other more hypothetical parts of nature.”
REFERENCES
1.
I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, England (1983), p. 23.
2.
Hacking, p. 265.
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R. A. Millikan, The Electron, U. Chicago P., Chicago (1917).
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B. C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image, Clarendon P., Oxford, England (1980).
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© 1997 American Institute of Physics.
1997
American Institute of Physics
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