HERTZIAN WAVE WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. loi 



of something entirely different. The single electron is the indivisible 

 unit or atomic element of so-called negative electricity, and the neutral 

 chemical atom deprived of one electron is the unit of positive elec- 

 tricity. On this hypothesis, the chemical atom is to be regarded as 

 a microcosm, a sort of a solar system in miniature, the component 

 electrons being capable of vibration relatively to the atomic center of 

 mass. Furthermore, from this point of view it is the electron which 

 is the effective cause of radiation. It alone has a grip on the ether 

 whereby it is able to establish wave motion in the latter. 



Dr. Larmor has developed in considerable detail an hypothesis of 

 the nature of an electron which makes it the center or convergence- 

 point of lines of a self-locked ether strain of a torsional type. The 

 notion of an atom merely as a * center of force' was one familiar to 

 Faraday and much supported by Boscovich and others. The fatal 

 objection to the validity of this notion as originally stated was that it 

 offers no possibility of explaining the inertia of matter. On the elec- 

 tronic hypothesis, the source of all inertia is the inertia of the ether, 

 and until we are able to dissect this last quality into anything simpler 

 than the time-element involved in the production of an ether strain 

 or displacement, we must accept it as an ultimate fact, not more 

 elucidated because we speak of it as the inductance of the electron. 



We postulate, therefore, the following ideas: We have to think of 

 the ether as a homogeneous medium in which a strain of some kind, 

 most probably of a rotational type, is possible. This strain appears 

 only under the influence of an appropriate stress called the electric 

 force, and disappears when the force is removed. Hence to create 

 this strain necessitates the expenditure of energy. An electron is a 

 center or convergence-point of lines of permanent ether strain of such 

 nature that it can not release itself. To obtain some idea of the nature 

 of such a structure, let us imagine a flat steel band formed into a ring 

 by welding the ends together. There is then no torsional strain. If, 

 however, we suppose the band cut in one place, ouq end then given half 

 a turn and the cut ends again welded, we shall have on the band a 

 self-locked twist, which can be displaced on the band, but which can 

 not release itself or be released except by cutting the ring. Hence we 

 see that to make an electron in an ether possessing torsional elasticity 

 would require creative energy, and when made, the electron can not 

 destroy itself except by occupying simultaneously the same place as an 

 electron of opposite type. Every electron extends, therefore, as Faraday 

 said of the atom, throughout the universe, and the properties that 

 we find in the electron are only there because they are first in the 

 universal medium, the ether. Every line of ether or electric strain 



