Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/110

106 in the plane of the radiator, and secondly, the lines of magnetic flux at right angles to these. At any one point in space these two changes, the strain and the flux, succeed each other periodically, being, however, at right angles in direction. At any one moment these two effects are distributed periodically or cyclically through space, and these changes in time and space constitute an electric wave or electromagnetic wave.

We may then summarize the above statements by saying that the most recent hypothesis as to the nature of electrical action and of electricity itself is briefly comprised in the following statements: The universally diffused medium called the ether has had created in it certain centers of strain or radiating points from which proceed lines of strain, and these centers of force are called electrons. Electrons must, therefore, be of two kinds, positive and negative, according to the direction of the strain radiating from the center. These electrons in their free condition constitute what we call electricity, and the electrons themselves are the atoms of electricity which, in one sense, is, therefore, as much material as that which we call ordinary gross or ponderable matter.

Collocations of these electrons constitute the atoms of gross matter, and we must consider that the individuality of any atom is not determined merely by the identity of the electrons composing it, but by the permanence of their arrangement or form. In any mass of material substance there is probably a continual exchange of electrons from one atom to another, and hence at any one given moment, whilst a number of the electrons are an association forming material atoms, there will be a further number of isolated but intermingled electrons, which are called the free electrons. In substances which we call good conductors, we must imagine that the free electrons have the power of moving freely through or between the material atoms, and this movement of the electrons constitutes a current of electricity; whilst a superfluity of electrons of either type in any one mass of matter constitutes what we call a charge of electricity. Hence an electrical oscillation, which is merely a very rapid alternating current taking place in a conductor, is on this hypothesis assumed to consist in a rapid movement to and fro of the free electrons. We may picture to ourselves, therefore, a rod of metal in which electrical oscillations are taking place, as similar to an organ pipe or siren tube in which movements of the air particles are taking place to and fro, the free electrons corresponding with the air particles.

Owing to the nature of the structure of an electron, it follows, however, that every movement of an electron is accompanied by changes in the distribution of the electric strain or ether strain taking place throughout all surrounding space, and, as already explained, certain very rapid movements of the electrons have the effect of detaching