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Jean Baptiste Perrin was awarded the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physics for his researches that 'put a definite end to the long struggle regarding the question of the physical reality of molecules.' The measurement of Avogadro's number is considered the central feature in this accomplishment. In 1908, Perrin measured Avogadro's number from experimental work on the Brownian movement. By 1913, he published ... read more'Les Atomes' where he brought together 13 different equations to measure this constant based on work by him and his contemporaries. The convergence of Avogadro's number across these equations has long been considered the crux of the argument for molecular reality. In this paper, I have pointed out that numerical convergence by itself only construes Avogadro's number as a constant of proportionality. The evidence that Avogadro's number is an integer and that matter is discrete is found in the details of the experiments. I look at indirect verifications of discreteness in measurements of the elementary charge and the number of alpha particles emitted from radioactive substances. I then look at the direct verification of discreteness in the Brownian movement of granules.read less
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