This is the theory then,--this theory of elasticity as dependent on
motion,--which, in combination with the estimate of density, makes the
internal energy of the ether so gigantic. For in every cubic
millimetre of space we have, according to this view, a mass equivalent
to what, if it were matter, we should call a thousand tons,
circulating internally, every part of it, with a velocity comparable
to the velocity of light, and therefore containing--stored away in
that small region of space--an amount of energy of the order 10²⁹
ergs, or, what is the same thing, 3 × 10¹¹ kilowatt centuries;
which is otherwise expressible as equal to the energy of a million
horse-power station working continuously for forty million years.
SUMMARISED BRIEF STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE ETHER
_(As communicated by the author to the British Association at
Leicester, 1907)._
1. The theory that an electric charge must possess the equivalent of
inertia was clearly established by J.J. Thomson in the _Philosophical
Magazine_ for April, 1881.
2. The discovery of masses smaller than atoms was made experimentally
by J.J. Thomson, and communicated to Section A at Dover in 1899.
3. The thesis that the corpuscles so discovered consisted wholly of
electric charges was sustained by many people, and was clinched by the
experiments of Kaufmann in 1902.
4. The concentration of the ionic charge, required to give the
observed corpuscular inertia, can be easily calculated; and
consequently the size of the electric nucleus, or electron, is known.
5. The old perception that a magnetic field is kinetic has been
developed by Kelvin, Heaviside, FitzGerald, Hicks, and Larmor, most of
whom have treated it as a flow along magnetic lines; though it may
also, perhaps equally well, be regarded as a flow perpendicular to
them and along the Poynting vector. The former doctrine is sustained
by Larmor, as in accordance with the principle of Least Action, and
with the absolutely stationary character of the ether as a whole; the
latter view appears to be more consistent with the theories of J.J.
Thomson.
6. A charge in motion is well known to be surrounded by a magnetic
field; and the energy of the motion can be expressed in terms of the
energy of this concomitant field,--which again must be accounted as
the kinetic energy of ethereous flow.
7. Putting these things together, and considering the ether as
essentially incompressible--on the strength of the Cavendish electric
experiment, the facts of gravitation, and the general idea of a
connecting continuous medium--the author reckons that to deal with the
ether dynamically it must be treated as having a density of the order
10¹² grammes per cubic centimetre. (See Appendix 2.)
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