  Well over a century after the discovery of the electron, we are still faced
with serious conceptual issues regarding precisely what an electron is. Since
the development of particle physics and the Standard Model, we have accumulated
a great deal of knowledge about the relationships among various subatomic
particles. However, this knowledge has not significantly aided in our
understanding of the fundamental nature of any particular elementary subatomic
particle. The fact that many particle properties, such as position, time,
speed, energy, momentum, and component of spin, are observer-dependent suggests
that these relevant variables do not represent properties per se, but rather
the relationship between the observer and the observed. That is, they reflect
details about how the electron influences the observer, and vice versa. Here we
attempt to understand this by considering a simple model where particles
influence one another in a discrete and direct fashion. The resulting
framework, referred to as Influence Theory, is shown to faithfully reproduce a
surprising amount of physics. While it would be naive to assume that the ideas
presented here comprise anything resembling the final word on the matter, it is
hoped that this work will demonstrate that a simple and understandable picture
of particles, such as the electron, is indeed feasible and should be actively
sought after.
