202 Dr. C. V. Burton on a Theory 



that the analogy fails in this and in many other respects, it 

 may serve to roughly illustrate the suggestion that the size 

 of strain-figures, and consequently of atoms, is determined by 

 the coarse-grainedness of the medium. 



14. Formation of Atoms. — As regards the different varieties 

 of atoms, we may conceive them to be made up of one kind or 

 of several kinds of strain-figures. In 

 place of the simpler form of fig. 2 we 

 might for example imagine a form like 

 fig. 3, where in the regions C, E the 

 strain is such that the potential energy 

 would decrease with increase of strain, 

 while in the regions B, D the strain 

 and the potential energy would increase 

 together. We might also imagine dis- 

 tributions which were not spherical, in e 

 which case it might happen (§ 4) that 



the laws of motion were less simple than those of Newton. 

 It would not then necessarily follow that an atom consisting 

 of more than one strain-figure would possess the same complex 

 dynamical properties, though I am not aware of any evidence 

 that the separate atoms or molecules of a substance move in 

 accordance with Newton's laws. 



Of course the operation described in § 2 is not intended to 

 represent the formation of a strain-figure, but merely to show 

 that the existence of such a distribution is conceivably possible. 

 If the ultimate fluid had long ago possessed motion of the 

 most general kind, we might imagine its present condition to 

 be due to the degeneration of that motion into a fine-grained 

 turbulence ; and if, in the quasi-solid so constituted, the 

 existence of strain-figures were possible, it seems not unlikely 

 that such would incidentally have been formed, unless the 

 motion fulfilled special conditions. I would suggest then, 

 very tentatively, that if the distribution of motion in the ultimate 

 fluid had fulfilled certain special conditions, there would have been 

 no atomic matter in the universe, and that the existence of matter 

 as we know it is an indication that such conditions were ivanting. 



Concerning the possibility of the " transmutation " of 

 elements, this investigation leads to no immediate conclusion, 

 but any conceivable superposition of two strain-figures would 

 probably involve only finite potential energy, so that the 

 effect of a very severe direct encounter might be to make the 

 two strain-figures pass through one another. It seems pos- 

 sible, too, that at some stage of the impact the distribution 

 might resolve itself into one or more strain-figures of a 

 different kind, the entire effective mass not being necessarily 

 the same as before. 



