Incidentally the electron explains how they produce an aurora in the heavens, and how it is that the earth has become a negatively electrified body. CHAPTER XIII A BOON TO MAN Every living thing is dependent upon our activities. It is we electrons who send out heat and light from the sun, and it is we who receive these on their arrival upon this planet. Our action in the matter is really very simple, but until man discovered our existence, he was mystified considerably. We were amused to hear man say that the atoms of incandescent matter in the sun produced waves in the æther, and that when these æther waves fell upon other atoms on this planet, these were set into a state of vibration, thus producing heat and light. Now if man had only stopped to think, he would have seen how ridiculous it was to speak of atoms of matter producing waves in the æther. He ought to have known that atoms of matter cannot affect the æther, for it offers no resistance to matter moving through it. Man might have pictured himself riding on the back of this great planet, flying through space at a speed very similar to that of a rifle bullet, and yet even the flimsy blanket of air surrounding the planet is not disturbed by the æther through which it is rushing. It is true that the atoms of matter play an important part in the origin of heat, but the atoms in the sun could no more affect the atoms on the earth than could a man on the earth push the moon about. It is the very intimate connection between us electrons and the all-pervading æther which enables our fellows in the sun to communicate with those of us upon this planet. Where would man be without us? [Illustration: PROTECTION AGAINST A DISCHARGE OF ELECTRONS _By permission of Siemens Schuckert Werke_ _Berlin_ When a man is encased completely in an over-all made of flexible metallic gauze he is proof against shock due to a discharge of high-tension electricity. The part played by electrons in the case of electric shock is explained in Chapter IV.] I cannot understand wherein man should find any mystery in connection with this very simple action of ours. You will picture our distant fellow-electrons making very rapid revolutions around the atoms of matter to which they are attached as satellites. Just as the moon circles around the earth, so do we circle around our atoms, but at an enormously greater speed. Of course the whole length of our orbit is inconceivably small, and the speed of our revolutions is inconceivably great. It is our rapid motion through the æther which produces those waves known to man as radiant heat and light. Some one may ask how it is that we electrons can disturb the æther while the giant atoms cannot. The obvious answer is that we are not matter, but electricity; we are not in the same category as atoms of matter.