298 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



radiated, is simply stored up in the atom, and it 

 therefore becomes, as it were, a storehouse of energy 

 in the sether. 



We know that an electron cannot move faster 

 than the velocity of light. Hence if n be the fre- 

 quency of a vibration and r = radius of the orbit 



of the electron as a limit, n = . 



If n becomes greater than this value — r being the 

 minimum radius of the orbit — the electron will 

 necessarily fly off. If r be equal to 10~^ then the 

 frequency of vibration at which the electron is shot 

 off is equal to 10^*. But we have reason to think 

 that the value of r is very much less than that which 

 corresponds to the radius of the sphere of action of 

 a molecule ; consequently n is greater than 10^^. 

 The energy of the corpuscles thus shot off will by 

 their collisions increase the energy of translation of 

 the molecules with which they may collide, and as 

 their velocity is diminished they will ultimately be 

 caught by a molecule and absorbed by it ; then this 

 whole process is repeated again. The energy which is 

 dissipated is only that which the sether takes up before 

 the vibrations are rapid enough not to affect it. 



If a = distance between two consecutive particles 



3 X 10^" 

 in the sether, then n = if the analogy of a 



stretched cord with pellets is to hold, a being the 

 distance between two consecutive particles in the 

 sether. The condition, therefore, that energy should 

 be stored up in the atoms is that the distance 



