The Ether of Space

AND ENERGY

wever, is not my intention. The view I advocate is that the ether is a perfect continuum, an absolute plenum, and that therefore no rarefaction is possible. The ether inside matter is just as dense as the ether outside, and no denser. A ma

composed? Those who feel any difficulty here, should bethink themselves of what they mean by the average or aggregate den

r or lead,-the answer is that it is entirely and accurately fair; since air, and every other known form of matter, is essentially an aggrega

an the specific gravity of the dry powder as it lies, like snow; or it may m

hich its units are made-which would be ether; or we might, and in practice do, mean the density of the a

omposed is of immense, of wellnigh incredible, density. It is only another way of saying that the ultimate units of matter are few and far between-i.e. that they are excessively small as compared with the distances be

cted aggregate: certainly of any assemblage whose particles are actually composed of the material of the continuum. Because the former is "a

obert Hooke, and I quote a passage which Professor Poynting has disco

the rarest, thinnest, lightest, or least powerful body of all; as gold for instance, and ?ther, or the substance that fills the cavity of an exhausted vessel, or cavity of the glass of a barometer above the quicksilver. Nay, as I shall afterwards prove, this cavity is more full, or a more dense body of ?ther, in the common sense or acceptation of the word, than gold is of gold, bulk for bulk; and that because the one, viz. the mass of ?ther, is all ?ther: but the mass of gold, which we conceive, is not all gold

s this singular attempt at utterance thus:-"All space is filled with equally dense materia. Gold fills only a small fra

-practically that matter is made of ether; and that assumption, in Hooke's day, must have been only a speculation. But it is the

can differ only in a numerical coefficient, and cannot differ as regards order of magnitude. The only way out of this conclusion would be the discovery that the negative electron is not the real or the main matter-unit, but is only a subsidiary ingredient; whereas the main mass is the more bulky positive charge. That last hypothesis ho

re it not for the velocity of light. By transmitting waves at a finite and measurable speed, the ether has given itself away, and has let in all the possibilities of calculation and numerical statement. Its properties are thereby exhibi

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s to say that the density of matter is small. Just as we can say that the density of the visible

hing about ether is not so much its density, considered in itself, as the energy which that density necessarily involves, on any kinetic theory

jection which is sometimes felt, as to the fluid and easily permeable character of a medium of this great density,-that is to say, as to the absence of friction

n it does indeed oppose an obstacle, but that appears as essentially a part of the inertia or massiveness of the moving body. It contributes to its momentum; and, if the fluid is everywhere present, it

r second. And the ratio of the elasticity or rigidity to the density is equal to the square of this speed;-that is to say, the elasticity must be 9 × 1020 times the density; or, in other

ves? To answer this we must fall back upon Lord Kelvin's kinetic theory of elasticity:-that it must be due to rotational motion-intimate fine-grained motion throughout the whole etherial region-motion no

his internal motion must be comparable to the speed of wave propagation;-that is to say that the internal squirming circulation, to

his view, a mass equivalent to what, if it were matter, we should call a thousand tons, circulating internally, every part of it, with a velocity comparable to the velocity of light, and therefore containing-stored away in that small region

rief Stateme

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the author to the

cester

equivalent of inertia was clearly established by J.J.

s was made experimentally by J.J. Thomson, a

wholly of electric charges was sustained by many people,

bserved corpuscular inertia, can be easily calculated; and conse

es; though it may also, perhaps equally well, be regarded as a flow perpendicular to them and along the Poynting vector. The former doctrine is sustained by Larmor, as in accordance wi

e energy of the motion can be expressed in terms of the energy of this concomita

ic experiment, the facts of gravitation, and the general idea of a connecting continuous medium-the author reckons that to deal w

les, i.e. by the kinetic or rotational elasticity of Lord Kelvin. And the internal circulatory speed of the

intrinsic or constitutional vortex energy of the eth

space must possess the equivalent of a thousand tons, and every