MORE ABOUT ELECTRONS 83 



the atoms are more stable even than solar systems, 

 and will maintain equihbrium for millions of 

 millions of centuries. 



It is difficult to believe that bodies as small as 

 corpuscles can make the apparent plenum of an 

 atom, which is as large in comparison with them 

 as a cathedral in comparison with a comma ; yet 

 when we remember that the infinitesimal corpuscles 

 are moving in their infinitesimal orbits at such a 

 pace that they would reach the moon in a second 

 or two, their apparent ubiquity is explained. It 

 is simply a case of kinematographic continuity. 

 Granted that the corpuscles move with such speed, 

 an atom may well appear single and solid. A 

 single grain of dust flying about with such velocity 

 within a church would make it as impenetrable as 

 a rock of granite. 



It is not even necessary that the atoms should 

 be hard. More and more modern science leans 

 to the strange idea that hardness is simply softness 

 in motion. " It is probable," says a French 

 scientist, " that matter owes its rigidity only to the 

 rapidity of the rotary motion of its elements, and 

 that if this movement stopped it would instan- 

 taneously vanish into ether without leaving a trace 

 behind. Gaseous vortices animated by a rapidity of 

 rotation of the order of that of the cathode rays 

 would in all probability become as hard as steel." 



