Now, assuming for the sake of simplicity that the wire which determines
the current is in the form of a circle, if we take a number of small
magnets and place them all pointing in the same direction normal to
the plane of the circle, so that they fill it and the wire binds them
round, we find that this sheet of magnets has the same effect on
the magnetic pole that the current has. The sheet of magnets may be
curved, but the edge of it must coincide with the wire. The collection
of magnets is then equivalent to the vortex sheet, and an elementary
magnet to a part of it. Thus, we must think of a magnet as conditioning
a rotation in the ether round the plane which bisects at right angles
the line joining its poles.
If a current is started in a circuit, we must imagine vortices like
bowls turning themselves inside out, starting from the contour. In
reaching a parallel circuit, if the vortex sheet were interrupted and
joined momentarily to the second circuit by a free rim, the axis plane
would lie between the two circuits, and a point on the second circuit
opposite a point on the first would correspond to a point opposite
to it on the first; hence we should expect a current in the opposite
direction in the second circuit. Thus the phenomena of induction are
not inconsistent with the hypothesis of a vortex about an axial plane.
In four-dimensional space, in which all four dimensions were
commensurable, the intensity of the action transmitted by the medium
would vary inversely as the cube of the distance. Now, the action of
a current on a magnetic pole varies inversely as the square of the
distance; hence, over measurable distances the extension of the ether
in the fourth dimension cannot be assumed as other than small in
comparison with those distances.
If we suppose the ether to be filled with vortices in the shape of
four-dimensional spheres rotating with the A motion, the B motion would
correspond to electricity in the one-fluid theory. There would thus
be a possibility of electricity existing in two forms, statically,
by itself, and, combined with the universal motion, in the form of a
current.
To arrive at a definite conclusion it will be necessary to investigate
the resultant pressures which accompany the collocation of solid
vortices with surface ones.
To recapitulate:
The movements and mechanics of four-dimensional space are definite and
intelligible. A vortex with a surface as its axis affords a geometric
image of a closed circuit, and there are rotations which by their
polarity afford a possible definition of statical electricity.[7]
[7] These double rotations of the A and B kinds I should like to call
Hamiltons and co-Hamiltons, for it is a singular fact that in his
“Quaternions” Sir Wm. Rowan Hamilton has given the theory of either
the A or the B kind. They follow the laws of his symbols, I, J, K.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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