Electrons keep on surprising physicists
One of the most surprising things about electrons is that it still keeps on surprising physicist. After all, it has been announced long before as a fundamental particle. Since it is a fundamental particle already, then what else can get out of a main building block? What has a dead end has to offer anyway?
Permit me to go back in time to look at how electrons came about. Electrons first came into scientific existence when it showed itself as a cathode ray when a German physicist Johann Hittorf tried studying the electrical properties of gases in near vacuum state. That was in 1869. It is even called a beta ray. Its existence as a form of radiation later changed into particle when its mass was discovered by J.J. Thomson in 1896 and its charge was clearly measured with finality with Robert Millikan's oil-drop experiment in 1909. Since then Quantum Mechanics observed its wave-like characteristics. It is wave-like especially in highly confined state like the atom but remains as a particle as a free particle. Louis de Broglie's prediction of its wave property in 1924 gave us a slightly probabilistic attribute as shown by Erwin Schroedinger in 1926. His equations gave the electron 3 quantum numbers in its confined state in the atom abd Paul Dirac discovered its Spin after incorporating Einstein's special relativistic into Quantum Mechanics.
Consequently, efforts to smash the electron into smaller parts were not successful enough. Its been classified as 1st generation LEPTON, then to differentiate it further from quarks, its also classified as FERMION as opposed from BOSON. For all its properties, it is probably the particle with a wide range of application - X-rays, electron microscope, electron lithography and of course the cathode ray tube (except for photon of course)
A recent study (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173372-smoother-than-expected-electrons-could-mean-rethinking-particle-physics) now tells us that the electron is almost perfectly spherical particle due to its inabiity to "deform" as observed from dipole moment from its interactiuon with its supersymmetric partner. However, this property of electron deformation wasn't the intended observation anyway but for scientists looking for its super-partner. If these partners exist, they would have deformed the electron and that deformation must be observed from its variation of its electric dipole moment. It could be another blow to the search for the supersymmetric partcles. Personally though, I do not believe supersymmetry exists. It is an elegant mathematical solution but the universe in its smallest sense is at best not so elegant at all.
