THE ELECTRONIC THEORY OF 

 MATTER 1 



BY SIR OLIVEE LODGE, D. So., F. E. S. 



IN a recent number of Harper's Magazine Sir Oliver 

 Lodge presents a popular account of the electronic theory, 

 which is well worth quoting : 



Our present view of an atom of matter is something 

 like the following: Picture to one's self an individualized 

 mass of positive electricity, diffused uniformly over a 

 space as big as an atom say a sphere of which 200,000,000 

 could lie edge to edge in an inch, or such that a million 

 million million million could be crowded tightly together 

 into an apothecary's grain. Then imagine disseminated 

 throughout this small spherical region a number of minute 

 specks of negative electricity, all exactly alike, and all 

 flying about, vigorously, each of them repelling every 

 other, but all attracted and kept in their orbits by the 

 mass of positive electricity in which they are embedded 

 and flying about. In so far as an atom is impenetrable to 

 other atoms, its parts act on the sentinel principle, not on 

 the crowd principle. 



There are two ways of keeping hostile people out of an 

 open building; one is to fill it with your own supporters, 

 another is to place an armed policeman at every door. The 

 electrons are extremely energetic and forcible, though in 

 bulk mere specks or centers of force. Every speck is 

 exactly like every other, and each is of the size and weight 

 appropriate to the electron. Different atoms, that is, atoms 

 of different kinds of matter, are all believed to be composed 

 in the same sort of way; but if the atoms of a substance 



Review of an article in Harper's Magazine, from Scientific Ameri- 

 can Supplement, September 17, 1904. 



286 



