Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/338

328 neutral state; positive electrification, on the other hand, since it involves the absence of corpuscles, is accompanied by a diminution in mass.

An interesting question arises as to the nature of the mass of these corpuscles which we may illustrate in the following way. When a charged corpuscle is moving, it produces in the region around it a magnetic field whose strength is proportional to the velocity of the corpuscle; now in a magnetic field there is an amount of energy proportional to the square of the strength, and thus, in this case, proportional to the square of the velocity of the corpuscle.

Thus jf e is the electric charge on the corpuscle and v its velocity, there will be in the region round the corpuscle an amount of energy equal to β e2v2 where β is a constant which depends upon the shape and size of the corpuscle. Again if m is the mass of the corpuscle its kinetic energy is mv2 and thus the total energy due to the moving electrified corpuscle is (m $$+$$ β e2)v2 so that for the same velocity it has the same kinetic energy as a non-electrified body whose mass is greater than that of the electrified body by βe2. Thus a charged body possesses in virtue of its charge, as I showed twenty years ago, an apparent mass apart from that arising from the ordinary matter in the body. Thus in the case of these corpuscles, part of their mass is undoubtedly due to their electrification, and the question arises whether or not the whole of their mass can be accounted for in this way. I have recently made some experiments which were intended to test this point; the principle underlying these experiments was as follows: if the mass of the corpuscle is the ordinary 'mechanical' mass, then, if a rapidly moving corpuscle is brought to rest by colliding with a solid obstacle, its kinetic energy being resident in the corpuscle will be spent in heating up the molecules of the obstacle in the neighborhood of the place of collision, and we should expect the mechanical equivalent of the heat produced in the obstacle to be equal to the kinetic energy of the corpuscle. If,' on the other hand, the mass of the corpuscle is 'electrical,' then the kinetic energy is not in the corpuscle itself, but in the medium around it, and, when the corpuscle is stopped, the energy travels outwards into space as a pulse confined to a thin shell traveling with the velocity of light. I suggested some time ago that this pulse forms the Röntgen rays which are produced when the corpuscles strike against an obstacle. On this view, the first effect of the collision is to produce Röntgen rays and thus, unless the obstacle against which the corpuscle strikes absorbs all these rays, the energy of the heat developed in the obstacle will be less than the energy of the corpuscle. Thus, on the view that the mass of the corpuscle is wholly or mainly electrical in its origin, we should expect the heating effect to be smaller when the corpuscles strike against a target