THE VALUE OF SCIENCE 439 



This, then, would be, under another form, the ruin of the prin- 

 ciple of relativity. We are far, it is true, from appreciating the 

 thousandth of a second, but, after all, say some, the earth's total abso- 

 lute velocity is perhaps much greater than its relative velocity with 

 respect to the sun. If, for example, it were 300 kilometers per second 

 in place of 30, this would suffice to make the phenomenon observable. 



I believe that in reasoning thus one admits a too simple theory of 

 aberration. Michelson has shown us, I have told you, that the phys- 

 ical procedures are powerless to put in evidence absolute motion; I 

 am persuaded that the same will be true of the astronomic procedures, 

 however far precision be carried. 



However that may be, the data astronomy will furnish us in this 

 regard will some day be precious to the physicist. Meanwhile, I be- 

 lieve that the theorists, recalling the experience of Michelson, may 

 anticipate a negative result, and that they would accomplish a useful 

 work in constructing a theory of aberration which would explain this 

 in advance. 



Electrons and Spectra. — This dynamics of electrons can be ap- 

 proached from many sides, but among the ways leading thither is 

 one which has been somewhat neglected, and yet this is one of those 

 which promise us the most surprises. It is movements of electrons 

 which produce the lines of the emission spectra ; this is proved by the 

 Zeeman effect; in an incandescent body what vibrates is sensitive to 

 the magnet, therefore electrified. This is a very important first point, 

 but no one has gone farther. Why are the lines of the spectrum dis- 

 tributed in accordance with a regular law? These laws have been 

 studied by the experimenters in their least details ; they are very precise 

 and comparatively simple. A first study of these distributions recalls 

 the harmonics encountered in acoustics; but the difference is great. 

 Not only are the numbers of vibrations not the successive multiples of 

 a single number, but we do not even find anything analogous to the 

 roots of those transcendental equations to which we are led by so 

 many problems of mathematical physics: that of the vibrations of an 

 elastic body of any form, that of the Hertzian oscillations in a gen- 

 erator of any form, the problem of Fourier for the cooling of a solid 

 body. 



The laws are simpler, but they are of wholly other nature, and to 

 cite only one of these differences, for the harmonics of high order, the 

 number of vibrations tends toward a finite limit, instead of increasing 

 indefinitely. 



That has not yet been accounted for, and I believe that there we 

 have one of the most important secrets of nature. A Japanese physi- 

 cist, M. Nagaoka, has recently proposed an explanation; according to 

 him, atoms are composed of a large positive electron surrounded by a 



