TWENTIETH CENTURY SCIENCE PROBLEMS. 243 



and oxygen unite the}'- give out a surprising amount of energy in the 

 form of heat. A single pound of this combination, taken at ordi- 

 nary temperature, will give out an amount of heat equal to seven mil- 

 lion foot pounds of work, or sufficient to raise a ton one half mile 

 high. We know that heat is a vibratory kind of atomic and molecular 

 motion and the rate of this vibratory motion is the measure of the 

 temperature. The question is as to the antecedent of the heat which 

 thus appears. In what form does energy exist in atoms? Up to this 

 time we have been able to trace energy through its various forms until 

 we come to atoms ; there it has eluded us. We say ' chemical energy,' 

 but we have no idea how it differs from heat or from gravitative 

 energy. It is a mystery. What form of motion or stress can be thus 

 embodied? In some way it is related to the ether. It seems as if in 

 some unique manner atoms drew from the ether as from a common 

 reservoir, each particular atom capable of holding so much of that 

 kind and no more, like pint cups and quart cups, and this at once 

 transformed into heat at the instant of combination. When com- 

 binations of atoms such as water are decomposed, they again absorb 

 the energy spent to separate them, and an atom therefore possesses 

 more available energy than any combination of atoms. It seems as 

 if atoms acted as transformers of ether energy into the ordinary and 

 familiar forms, such as heat and electricity, and vice versa, trans- 

 forming the latter into ether energy. When we learn this secret we 

 may likely enough be able to artificially extract from the ether as much 

 energy as we need for any purpose, for as I have said, it is inexhaust- 

 ible, and every cubic inch of space has enough for all the needs of a 

 man for many days. This seems fairly probable, and when the source 

 of atomic energy is discovered, it will rank with the greatest scientific 

 achievements of all time. We shall know more of the ether, of the 

 structure of matter, of the antecedents of most of the energy we are 

 familiar with, as this phenomenon underlies most if not all of the 

 phenomena in all the sciences. 



It is yet regarded as a mechanical paradox that a medium without 

 friction should have waves set up in it by molecular vibration, and little 

 is known of the physical relations existing between matter and ether, 

 by which electrical and magnetic phenomena are produced, and one 

 may say that of the nature of ether we know nothing. Think of the 

 amazing extent of it. As limitless as space itself, with no break or 

 separation of its parts, not made up of particles like matter, but com- 

 pletely filling space and so constituted that any movement of a particle 

 of matter in some way affects the whole body of it to the remotest part 

 of the visible universe. 



The nature of gravitation is as unknown as the nature of life it- 

 self. We know how it acts, and that this action is millions of times 



