Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/272

 measured by the electrodynamic effects of the cell with the circuit closed; and, further, that when the circuit was closed, the difference of the tensions, measured electrostatically, at any two points of the outer circuit was proportional to the ohmic resistance existing between them. But in spite of all that had been done, it was still uncertain how "tension," or "electroscopic force," or "electromotive force" should be interpreted in the language of theoretical electrostatics; it will be remembered that Ohm himself, perpetuating a confusion which had originated with Volta, had identified electroscopic force with density of electric charge, and had assumed that the electricity in a conductor is at rest when it is distributed uniformly throughout the substance of the conductor.

The uncertainty was finally removed in 1849 by Kirchhoff, who identified Ohm's electroscopic force with the electrostatic potential. That this identification is correct may be seen by comparing the different expressions which have been obtained for electric energy: Helmholtz's expression shows that the energy of a unit charge at any place is proportional to the value of the electrostatic potential at that place; while Joule's result shows that the energy liberated by a unit charge in passing from one place in a circuit to another is proportional to the difference of the electric tensions at the two places. It follows that tension and potential are the same thing.

The work of Kirchhoff was followed by several other investigations which belong to the borderland between electrostatics and electrodynamics. One of the first of these was the study of the Leyden jar discharge.

Early in the century Wollaston, in the course of his experiments on the decomposition of water, had observed that when the decomposition is effected by a discharge of static electricity, the hydrogen and oxygen do not appear at separate electrodes; but that at each electrode there is evolved a mixture of the