ft THE 



LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



MAY 1846. 



LIV. Thoughts on Ray-vibrations. By Michael Faraday, 

 Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., Fullerian Prof., fyc. Sfc. 



To Richard Phillips, Esq. 

 Dear Sir, 



A T your request I will endeavour to convey to you a notion 

 ^*- of that which I ventured to say at the close of the last 

 Friday-evening Meeting, incidental to the account I gave of 

 Wheatstone's electro-magnetic chronoscope ; but from first to 

 last understand that I merely threw out as matter for specula- 

 tion, the vague impressions of my mind, for I gave nothing 

 as the result of sufficient consideration, or as the settled con- 

 viction, or even probable conclusion at which I had arrived. 



The point intended to be set forth for the consideration of 

 the hearers was, whether it was not possible that the vibrations 

 which in a certain theory are assumed to account for radia- 

 tion and radiant phaenomena may not occur in the lines of 

 force which connect particles, and consequently masses of 

 matter together; a notion which, as far as it is admitted, will 

 dispense with the aether which, in another view, is supposed to 

 be the medium in which these vibrations take place. 



You are aware of the speculation* which I some time since 

 uttered respecting that view of the nature of matter which 

 considers its ultimate atoms as centres of force, and not as so 

 many little bodies surrounded by forces, the bodies being con- 

 sidered in the abstract as independent of the forces and capa- 

 ble of existing without them. In the latter view, these little 

 particles have a definite form and a certain limited size; in 

 the former view such is not the case, for that which represents 

 size may be considered as extending to any distance to which 

 the lines of force of the particle extend : the particle indeed is 



* Phil. Mag. 1844, vol. xxiv. p. 136. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 28. No. 188. May 1 846. 2 B 



