The Autobiography of an Electron: Wherein the Scientific Ideas of the Present Time Are Explained in an Interesting and Novel Fashion — John Shaqi
The Autobiography of an Electron: Wherein the Scientific Ideas of the Present Time Are Explained in an Interesting and Novel FashionGibson, Charles R. (Charles Robert)
Science
The Autobiography of an Electron: Wherein the Scientific Ideas of the Present Time Are Explained in an Interesting and Novel Fashion
Gibson, Charles R. (Charles Robert)
Electricity; Electrons
It does seem strange to us that men should be so distinctly different
from one another. We electrons are at a decided disadvantage, for we are
all identical in every respect. I have no individual name--it would
serve no purpose. Even if you could see me, you could not distinguish me
from any other electron. I wonder sometimes if men appreciate the great
advantage they have in possessing individual names. I was impressed
with this thought one fine summer morning. While I was riding on the
back of a particle of gas in the atmosphere, I was carried through the
open window of a nursery just as the under-nurse was putting the room in
order. A little later there was some commotion in the nursery, for the
young mother and her mother had come to see the twin daughters being
bathed by the nurses. The grandmother happened to remark how very much
alike the two little infants were. She said laughingly to the head nurse
that she must be careful not to get the children mixed. But the big
brother, aged five years, remarked that it would not matter really how
much they were mixed until they got their names. Sometimes I wish we
electrons did differ from one another, so that we might each possess an
individual name, but no doubt it is necessary for us all to be exactly
alike.
Long before man had discovered us, he caused us deliberately to do
certain things. He was mystified by the results of his experiments, for
he was not aware of our presence. A few of my fellow-electrons have
rather hazy recollections of being disturbed while clinging to a piece
of amber. They had been disturbed often before in a similar way, by
being rubbed against a piece of woollen cloth, and the result had been
always that a number of electrons let go their hold upon the cloth and
crowded on to the amber. The overcrowding was uncomfortable, but it
happened usually that the surplus electrons found some means of escape
to the earth, where there is no need of excessive crowding.
On the occasion to which I refer, it so happened that the rubbing had
been unusually vigorous and prolonged, so that the electrons were
crowded on to the amber in great numbers. In their endeavour to escape
they produced a strain or stress in the surrounding æther, and this
caused a small piece of straw, which was lying within the disturbed
area, to be forced towards the amber.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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