Page:Aether and Matter, 1900.djvu/216

 translatory motion, for the general case when the direction of that motion is inclined to the plane of the orbit, may be made similarly: it can also be extended to an ideal molecule constituted of any orbital system of electrons however complex. But this statement implies that the nucleus of the electron is merely a singular point in the aether, that there is nothing involved in it of the nature of inertia foreign to the aether: it also implies that there are no forces between the electrons other than those that exist through the mediation of the aether as here defined, that is other than electric forces.

The circumstance that the changes of their free periods, arising from convection of the molecules through the aether, are of the second order in v/c, is of course vital for the theory of the spectroscopic measurement of celestial velocities in the line of sight. That conclusion would however still hold good if we imagined the molecule to have inertia and potential energy extraneous to (i.e. unconnected with) the aether of optical and electrical phenomena, provided these properties are not affected by the uniform motion: for the aethereal fields of the moving electric charges, free or constrained, existing in the molecule, will be symmetrical fore and aft and unaltered to the first order by the motion, and therefore a change of sign of the velocity of translation will not affect them, so that the periods of free vibration cannot involve the first power of this velocity.

. The fact that uniform motion of the molecule through the aether does not disturb its constitution to the first order, nor the aethereal symmetry of the moving system fore and aft, shows that when steady motion is established the mean kinetic energy of the system consists of the internal energy of the molecule, which is the same as when it is at rest, together with the sum of the energies belonging to the motions of translation of its separate electrons. This is verified on reflecting that the disturbance in the aether is made up additively of those due to the internal motions of the electrons in the molecule and those due to their common velocity of translation. Thus in estimating the mean value of the volume-integral of the square of the aethereal disturbance, which is