ELECTRONS AND HOW WE USE THEM 

 BY JOHN MILLS, M.A. 



Educational Director, Western Electric Company 



WHAT is the electron? It is to-day's ultimate 

 element. What to-morrow's may be no one 

 can say. In terms of it the scientist of to-day 

 envisages all matter, all the stuff of which our universe 

 is composed. The constant change and motion of 

 matter, which appear as chemical or electrical or gravi- 

 tational phenomena, are ascribed to another entity, 

 called energy, which is the hidden motive power. A 

 third entity is sometimes postulated to fill the broad 

 spaces in which our tangible and ponderable matter 

 forms mere specks. A vast ether is then assumed 

 through which energy may be transmitted from one 

 body to another, whether as light and heat from solar 

 bodies or as so-called ether waves from a broadcasting 

 radio station to the household receiving set. 



Matter energy, and a universal medium are the three 

 entities in terms of which our present-day science is 

 finding its explanations and extending its applications 

 to human welfare. Of these the ether is the most de- 

 batable assumption. Perhaps energy is not trans- 

 mitted in waves through a continuous ethereal medium 

 but hurtles through empty space like a bullet. For this 



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