208 Prof. L. T. More on tie 



So far these ideas have more or less approval and have 

 been already discussed. Those following are more novel and 

 need to be supported. 



11. The electron has an invariable ponderable mnss, ??z, 

 and a variable electromagnetic mass, m e , due to its electrical 

 charge when in motion. Its total effective inertia is therefore, 

 M = m + m 6 . 



12. The electrical charge, e, of an electron is an un- 

 explainable property of matter, measured by its force of 

 electrical attraction. Instead of adopting the hypothesis that 

 the electric charge on an electron is constant, we shall con- 

 sider quantity of electricity to be a function of the velocity 

 of matter. Electromagnetic mass thus becomes an attribute 

 of matter somewhat analogous to hydrodynamic mass. The 

 difference between positive and negative electricity may 

 depend only on the direction of the orbital motion of the 

 electron. 



13. The electron possesses a force of gravitational attrac- 

 tion for other electrons, expressed by the law, 



F m x mm'(f)(l — l r ). 



14. The electron has an additional force of electrical 

 attraction according to the formula, 



F e <*<£{<?*'. (i-r)}. 



So great a revolution in thought as to consider inertia a 

 variable quantity and to substitute electricity for matter as 

 the substance of the universe., would only have been under- 

 taken from necessity. A mere matter of convenience would 

 scarcely warrant the labour of revising the work of the past 

 and of discarding what has been considered, until lately, as 

 definitely established. The need for some such radical 

 change in theory is based on the experimental facts dis- 

 covered in connexion with the passage of electricity through 

 highly rarefied gases, and with radioactivity. 



We may consider it established that the phenomena noted, 

 when electricity is discharged in a high vacuum, are 

 most readily explained by supposing the current due to a 

 stream of electrified particles moving with a velocity com- 

 parable to light. The experiments of Sir J. J. Thomson and 

 C. T. R. Wilson go to show that the masses of these projec- 

 tiles, when charged negatively, are about the one-thousandth 

 part of the mass of a hydrogen atom, provided the charge 

 on each is assumed to be the same and equal to that of the 

 hydrogen electrolytic ion. Those charged positively are 

 comparable to the various chemical atoms. 



