Does Matter Exist? 



electron appears on the scene, a thousand 

 times lighter than the lightest atom. In the 

 presence of such a cataclysm the first and natural 

 impulse was to stick the pieces together and 

 attempt to reconstruct the atom. With the 

 electrons this has been done more or less success- 

 fully. To-day the atom of matter no longer 

 appears to us as an indestructible mass but as a 

 sort of solar system formed by a central group 

 or nucleus charged with positive electricity 

 around which negative electrons gravitate in 

 closed orbits. Several hundred electrons are con- 

 tained in one atom of hydrogen, several thou- 

 sand in an atom of sodium or of mercury, and 

 they are extremely minute compared with the 

 dimensions of an atom. " If we depict/' says Sir 

 Oliver Lodge, " the electron by a printer's dot, 

 the atom on the same scale would be repre- 

 sented by an edifice 160 feet long, 130 feet 

 broad and 40 feet high. In fact the electrons 

 only occupy this space as soldiers occupy a 

 country; they patrol it in all directions at 

 enormous speeds. It is their energy and not 

 their mass that constitutes the unity of the 

 atom." 



105 



