Nearly 40 years after the discovery of the electron, the muon was discovered by Carl D. Anderson in 1936. Due to its mass, it was initially categorized as a meson rather than a lepton. It later became clear that the muon was much more similar to the electron than to mesons, as muons do not undergo the strong interaction, and thus the muon was reclassified: electrons, muons, and the (electron) neutrino were grouped into a new group of particles—the leptons. In 1962, Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger showed that more than one type of neutrino exists by first detecting interactions of the muon neutrino, which earned them the 1988 Nobel Prize, although by then the different flavours of neutrino had already been theorized.
nearly 40 years after the discovery of the electron the muon was discovered by carl d anderson in 1936 due to its mass it was initially categorized as a meson rather than a lepton it later became clear that the muon was much more similar to the electron than to mesons as muons do not undergo the strong interaction and thus the muon was reclassified electrons muons and the (electron) neutrino were grouped into a new group of particles—the leptons in 1962 leon m lederman melvin schwartz and jack steinberger showed that more than one type of neutrino exists by first detecting interactions of the muon neutrino which earned them the 1988 nobel prize although by then the different flavours of neutrino had already been theorized