HYPOTHESIS OF RADIANT MATTER 55 



transmission of motion through a vacuum ; to extend its importance as 

 the substratum of all phenomena it must become heterogeneous and 

 capable of deformation; to form a neutral atom, some of it must 

 become a spherical jelly in which other parts of itself are imbedded as 

 rigid particles. It has, consequently, different degrees of hardness, and 

 is subject to internal attractions. Thomson even volunteers the admis- 

 sion that, for the explanation of certain phenomena, his ether must 

 have structure, or, at least, be stratified. 



This can, of course, be no insinuation against the work of some of 

 the greatest living physicists and mathematicians : accepting their 

 premises, I do not doubt that they have drawn the consequences in the 

 most rigid fashion. I do assert, however, that some of their funda- 

 mental terms are used in a different sense from that to which we are 

 accustomed, and that we are, therefore, entitled to doubt whether the 

 conclusions which they reach really affect the jmenomena with which 

 the chemist deals : as if one were to discuss the crystallographic struc- 

 ture of Pentelian marble with reference to the architecture of the 

 Parthenon. 



A few examples, pertinent to our inquiry, will more precisely estab- 

 lish my meaning. One of the fundamental postulates of Professor 

 Thomson's mathematical argument is the definition of momentum as 

 the product of mass by velocity. Although this is not axiomatic, we 

 accept it as such by reason of the many ballistic experiments which 

 have proved its truth, so long as the projectile's mass was assumed to 

 remain constant : we should hesitate if we were told that mass was to 

 vary, i. e., that a bullet which weighs the same before and after the 

 shot, was heavier during its flight. But the momentum of Thomson's 

 electrons increases faster than their velocity, when the latter approaches 

 that of light; hence, he says, the mass of the electrons increases with 

 their swiftness. True, he calls it an electro-magnetic mass, but some 

 of his followers have forgotten the distinction. At all events, his terms 

 momentum and mass must not be accepted by us in their usual meaning. 



It is perfectly true that Thomson's calculations are corroborated by 

 Kaufmann's experiments on the velocity of radium rays in combined 

 electric and magnetic fields, if the latter's data are calculated according 

 to Thomson's views; without even seeking a radically different basis — 

 which would not be difficult — we can follow Thomson to a point where 

 his departure from ordinary assumptions becomes evident. He shows 

 that the value e/m diminishes at high velocities and then he assumes 

 that e, the electro-static charge, is constant; therefore m, the mass, 

 varies. Now, the value of e is derived from Faraday's law, which 

 would never have been announced if Faraday had not dealt with the 

 equivalent weights as fixed mathematical quantities. In fact, just so 

 far as Thomson substantializes electricity by giving it atomic structure, 

 with invariable mass, the chemical atom becomes wavy and matter 



