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Even in my earliest physics course we took for granted that charges are made of electrons (or their absence) and currents are due to the motion of electrons. But the electron is a very modern concept and all of Maxwell’s equations had been set in order by the mid 1800s— how did people determine that currents and charges were made of the same substance before then? Which experiments suggested this and who made the connection?

Diffycue
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    People did not determine that at all because the order of events was different, currents and charges were never seen as separate phenomena. Currents were only observed after Volta invented his pile, and analogized to a sequence of static discharges from the start. That was a natural analogy because one could do measurements on the pile with electrostatic instruments originally designed to measure charges. – Conifold Dec 20 '21 at 10:51
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    Does this answer your question? What is the history of electric current and resistance? – Conifold Dec 20 '21 at 10:52
  • @conifold if the matter is not indeterminate and of an empirical nature then it must have been determined by empirical investigation— even if the picture of a decisive experiment that settles one hypothesis over another is not historical in every case. If you are familiar enough with Volta’s work to track down the events you mention I would be grateful to have the opportunity to read more about them from the source material. – Diffycue Dec 23 '21 at 17:51
  • Brown's paper in the answer linked above has references to the original sources and secondary literature. But experiments do not determine theories, they only confirm or disconfirm hypotheses already in place. And in this case the hypothesis that currents and charges are of a kind was baked in by historical events from the start. Since it was the basis for further developments that were experimentally successful there was no need for generating alternatives to it or experiments to choose between them. – Conifold Dec 23 '21 at 19:04
  • @Conifold I fear that Brown’s work may be irrelevant provided your enthusiasm to disabuse me of notions I have presented no indication of holding. But I pray I am mistaken. – Diffycue Dec 24 '21 at 04:50

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