Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/300

296 the theoretical consequences deducible from an electric theory of matter.

I referred above briefly to the origin of radiation, saying that by the method of applying a powerful magnet to a source of light, and examining the minute perturbations in the lines of the spectrum thus produced, it had been proved that the real source of radiation was an electric charge in rapid orbital motion; and I now go on to say that by careful measurement of the amount of perturbation it has been definitely proved that it is our friends the negative electrons, with a mass about one thousandth of the smallest known atom of matter, that are responsible for the excitation of ether waves or the production of light. Larmor and others have indeed shown mathematically that whenever an electric charge is subject to acceleration, an emission of some amount of radiation is inevitable, by reason of the interaction of its electric and magnetic fields; and it is probable that there is no other source of light or radiation possible except this change in the motion of electrons. It is known, for instance, that the violent acceleration or retardation of electrons when they encounter an obstacle is responsible for the excitation of Röntgen rays. All light, and all the Hertz waves or pulses employed in wireless telegraphy, are due to electric acceleration, and the greater the rate of change of velocity the more violent is the radiation emitted.

The charge may oscillate, as in a Hertz vibrator, or it may revolve, as in a source of ordinary light such as a sodium flame. In order to emit perceptible radiation by revolving, it must revolve with extreme speed in a very small orbit, so that its rate of curvature or centripetal acceleration may be considerable; for it is on the square of the value of the average acceleration that the energy of radiation depends.

9. All this is of the nature of a definite and certain thesis; but now we are going to apply it to our hypothesis that the atom of matter is either wholly or partially composed of electrons in a state of vigorous motion among themselves. Such revolving or vibrating electrons are subject to acceleration, either radial or tangential, and must therefore to a greater or less extent necessarily emit radiation; it becomes natural to inquire whence comes the energy that is radiated away.

Now in ordinary familiar cases it is the irregular agitation of molecules which we call 'heat' that is being radiated away; and in that case the result is a mere cooling, or diminution of the molecular agitation, which can readily be made up by receipt of similar energy from the enclosures or from surrounding bodies; or, if not made up, it can produce the ordinary well-known effects of 'cold.' But to the motion of the internal parts of an atom the ideas of heat and temperature do not apply. The atom, if it lose energy, must lose what is to it an essential ingredient; and hence this inevitable radiating power