The first point that arises is the atom. I was brought up to look at t — Electron

"The most precise experiments have proved the correctness of the Einsteinian laws of mechanics and...Bucherers experiment proving the increase in mass of an electron in rapid motion is a case in point. Very important differences distinguish the theory of Einstein from that of Lorentz. Lorentz also had deduced from his theory that the mass of the electron should increase and grow infinite when its speed neared that of light; but the speed in question was the speed of the electron through the stagnant ether; whereas in Einsteins theory it is merely the speed with respect to the observer. According to Lorentz, the increase in mass of the moving electron was due to its deformation of Fitzgerald contraction. The contraction modified the lay of the electromagnetic field round the electron; and it was from this modification that the increase in mass observed by Bucherer was assumed to arise. In Einsteins theory, however, the increase in mass is absolutely general and need not be ascribed to the electromagnetic field of the electron in motion. An ordinary unelectrified lump of matter like a grain of sand would have increased in mass in exactly the same proportion; and no knowledge of the microscopic constitution of matter is necessary in order to predict these effects, which result directly from the space and time transformations themselves."

"Already in 1880... H. A. Lorentz showed that the foundations of an electromagnetic theory of dispersion could be laid in a manner quite analogous to the mechanical theory, by regarding every molecule as the origin of electric vibrations of a definite period. He says:—"Let there be in every material particle several material points charged with electricity, of which, however, only one be movable, and have the charge e and the mass μ." Lorentz derives the equations of dispersion from this fundamental assumption of vibrating charged particles."

"Three major sorts of infinities occur in quantum electrodynamics. The first, associated with the electrons infinite energy of interaction with its own electromagnetic field, is removed by redefining its mass to be the physical value, order by order, in perturbation theory. The second can be removed by demanding that a free electron produced at a given point in space be detectable with unit probability at some distant point at a later time. The third, related to the polarization of the vacuum pairs by a test charge, can be removed by redefining the electrons charge as its value as seen by a distant observer."

"In contemplating the papers Einstein wrote in 1905, I often find myself wondering which of them is the most beautiful. ...My favorite ...is Einstein’s paper on the blackbody radiation. ...Einstein did not try to derive the Wien law. He simply accepted it as an empirical fact and asked what it meant. By a virtuoso bit of reasoning involving statistical mechanics (of which he was a master, having independently invented the subject over a three-year period beginning in 1902), he was able to show that... the radiation in the cavity was mathematically the same as that of a dilute gas of particles. As far as Einstein was concerned, this meant that this radiation was a dilute gas of particles—light quanta. ...He realized that if the energetic light quanta were to bombard, say, a metal surface, they would give up their energies in lump sums and thereby liberate electrons from the surface in a predictable way, something that is called the photoelectric effect. ...not many physicists were even interested in the subject of blackbody radiation ...Planck, who was interested, decided that Einstein’s paper was simply wrong."

"The role of the Higgs interaction is remarkable — if electrons could not get mass via interacting with the Higgs field then atoms would be the size of the universe and our world could not exist. Further, when electrons do get mass via the interaction with the Higgs field, quantum corrections make them so massive they turn into black holes unless some new physics yet to be discovered allows them to be stabilized at their actual mass."

"It is clear... that the electrons—those minute particles whose size is to that of a bacillus as the size of a bacillus is to, say, the whole earth, and whose properties we may yet measure with the greatest precision— that these electrons are one of the most important foundations of our whole world structure."