ETHER 



the negative idea of a perfect 

 vacuum, and we know that it 

 contains ether because light can 

 travel across it. 



Sound has no existence in a 

 vacuum ; nor heat either ; both are 

 affections of ordinary matter, and 

 apart from matter are non- 

 existent. This cannot be said of 

 either light or magnetism or 

 electricity, though it is true that in 

 order to detect and display these 

 agencies a material medium or 

 instrument is necessary. 



The eye is a physiological organ 

 adapted for the reception and 

 detection of etherial tremors ; so 

 is a photographic camera with its 

 sensitive plate. Without the eye 

 we should be wholly ignorant of 

 the ether, and it is the only organ 

 of the body which responds to 

 etherial influence. The information 

 which it conveys to us, however, 

 is not about the ether, but about 

 the material bodies which have 

 either emitted, scattered, or other- 

 wise modified etherial tremors. 



Light conveys to us certain 

 information about the source emit- 

 ting it, and hence, by what is 

 called spectrum analysis, the con- 

 stitution of sun and stars has been 

 chemically examined, and their 

 relative motions along the line of 

 sight have been measured. 



Even the constitution of atoms 

 is yielding to the scrutiny made 

 possible by still finer kinds of 

 etherial vibration, those known as 

 ultra-violet light and X-rays. For 

 these are ether-tremors emitted 

 by electric particles vibrating or 

 revolving with incredible rapidity, 

 thousands of millions of million 

 times a second. 



Density of Ether 



It used to be thought that the 

 ether was an exceedingly tenuous 

 rarefied substance, far more subtle 

 than any ponderable matter, and 

 this is the meaning which poets 

 associate with the word ethereal. 

 In fact, a series of chemical liquids 

 have been rather inconveniently 

 designated "ethers" by chemists 

 because they are lighter and more 

 mobile than water. But the 

 modern view of the ether of space is 

 that it must be at least as dense 

 and substantial as any form of 

 matter which exists in it. If atoms 

 of matter are in any way composed 

 of ether, and if the ether as a con- 

 tinuous medium is incompressible, 

 then no atom of matter can be 

 denser than the medium of which it 

 is made. And inasmuch as we now 

 know that matter, even the most 

 solid, is excessively porous, and 

 consists of specks permeated by 

 otherwise empty space, it has 

 become probable that the ether is 

 immensely more substantial than 



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lead or gold or platinum ; in fact, 

 as some think, more than a million 

 times as dense. 



But here we are getting out of 

 our depth. The density of the 

 ether is not yet known. But we 

 should remember that the word 

 etherial, when it signifies proper- 

 ties relating to the ether, need not 

 mean ethereal at all, and had 

 better not be so spelt ; there is 

 literary authority for both spell- 

 ings, and the meanings associated 

 with them are clearly different. 



The modern view of matter is 

 that matter, and not ether, is the 

 rare and tenuous substance ; a 

 milky way or gossamer structure 

 of detached particles, immersed in 

 a substantial medium, and held 

 together by the force which it 

 exerts ; that is how matter now 

 appears to a physicist. 



Electric and Magnetic Properties 



A difficulty is sometimes felt as 

 to how bodies can move through a 

 dense or massive ether, and the 

 question has not been finally 

 answered, but it is clear that the 

 ether possesses no viscosity, and 

 so causes no frictional resistance to 

 motion. It is certain that motion 

 is the fundamental property of 

 matter, and it is almost equally 

 certain that the ether as a whole is 

 at what we should call at rest. But 

 it is susceptible of elastic strain, 

 and therefore is responsible for the 

 recoil and restoration of particles 

 of matter when, as in a spring or 

 raised weight, they have been dis- 

 placed from their equilibrial posi- 

 tion. One way of expressing that 

 is to say that all potential or static 

 energy is possessed by the ether, 

 while kinetic energy is possessed 

 by matter. 



The properties of ether are per- 

 fect ; it has no opacity, nor any 

 kind of imperfect elasticity. In 

 other words, it dissipates no energy, 

 but stores without loss anything 

 committed to it. It is in the inter- 

 action of matter and ether that 

 loss or dissipation occurs. A 

 medium filling all space was origin- 

 ally needed for carrying light, 

 whence it was called the lumini- 

 ferous or light-carrying ether, but 

 it is also required to explain most 

 of the phenomena of electricity 

 and magnetism, both of which 

 agencies are at home in a vacuum, 

 and are only modified by ordinary 

 matter. The ether must have both 

 electric and magnetic properties, 

 and Clerk Maxwell discovered that 

 these electric and magnetic pro- 

 perties were both utilised in the 

 propagation of light, so that for 

 the first time it was perceived that 

 light was an electro -magnetic phe- 

 nomenon. Ether waves can be 

 excited by any rapid electric or 



magnetic oscillation, just as sound 

 is excited in air by a rapid mechan- 

 ical oscillation. Electric oscilla- 

 tions are employed in wireless 

 telegraphy, and if they are of 

 sufficiently high frequency they 

 appeal to our eyes as light. 



Matter and Ether 



At a time when the oscillations 

 of ether were considered to be 

 mechanical vibrations, the ether 

 was thought to be analogous to an 

 elastic solid and was likened to a 

 jelly. Now that we know the os- 

 cillations to be electro -magnetic, 

 analogies become unservice- 



able. People sometimes think that 

 contradictory properties have to be 

 attributed to ether; but these 

 belong to the exploded elastic solid 

 theory, and are only appropriate 

 to a mistaken view as to its con- 

 stitution. 



Electric strain can exist just 

 as well in a fluid as in a solid, 

 for the strain is not really in the 

 matter, but in the intervening and 

 connecting medium. It is not to 

 be supposed that the ether is 

 structureless ; it is continuous, 

 and yet it may be in a constitu- 

 tional state of vortex motion ; but 

 if so its elements or units of in- 

 trinsic motion must be excessively 

 fine-grained, far finer than even 

 the electrons which stand out in 

 it as knots or singularities, related 

 to the main bulk of the ether of 

 space somewhat as an ordinary 

 knot is related to the rest of a 

 piece of string. We cannot press 

 this analogy, or any other, at 

 present, for we know too little 

 about it. Nor do we know as yet 

 whether human beings, or living 

 things generally, make any use of 

 ether, after the same fashion as 

 they make use of ordinary matter. 

 Much remains to be discovered 

 about the interaction between 

 matter and ether, and still more 

 about the interaction of life and 

 mind with both. 



Ether (ETHYL ETHER) (C ? H 5 ) 2 0. 

 In chemistry, a colourless, inflam- 

 mable liquid, lighter than water, 

 prepared by heating together a 

 mixture of sulphuric acid and alco- 

 hol. First described by Valerius 

 Cordus in 1540, the product made 

 by his method was employed as a 

 stimulant, later popular as Hoff- 

 mann's drops. S. A. Frobenius in 

 Great Britain communicated to 

 the Royal Society a recipe for 

 making ether, 1730^1. 



The chemical name is ethyl 

 oxide. Boullay's process is gener- 

 ally followed in its manufacture. 

 This employs nine parts of concen- 

 trated sulphuric acid to five parts 

 of 90 p.c. alcohol, and is continu- 

 ous, i.e. by adding fresh alcohol 

 the etherification is continued with 



