Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/449

Rh instituting the complex inequality, is eighty-one thousand billions less than that of the electric effort.

5. Cohesion between the singular surfaces of the negative inequali- ties results from the terms which were not taken into account in the first approximation, which corresponds to gravitation. These secondary terms involve the inverse distance to the sixth power, and have there- fore a very short range, and so correspond to efforts of cohesion of the singular surfaces as well as surface tensions, having no effect when the singular surfaces, or molecules, are separated by a distance very small compared with the diameter of the singular surface.

6. Transverse undulations in the medium corresponding to the waves of light are instituted by the disruptive reversion of the com- plex inequalities. The recoil sets up a vibration which is exhausted in initiating light.

7. Thus far the sketch of the results has included only those for which there exists sufficient evidence to admit of definite quantitative analysis. Nevertheless, these quantitative results show that the granular medium, as already defined, accounts by purely mechanical considerations for the evidence, and affords the only purely mechanical explanation possible. If then the substructure of the universe is mechanical, all the evidence not already adduced is such as may be accounted for by an extension of the analysis. And this is found to be the case.

The results of the further analysis afford proof

Of the existence of coincidence between the periods of vibration of

the molecules and the periods of the waves ; That dissociation of the compound molecules proves the previous

state to have been one of limited stability ; That the reassociations of compound molecules result from the

reversion of complex inequalities ;

Of the absorption of the energy of light by inequalities ; That negative inequalities affect the waves passing through ; That refraction is caused by the vibration of inequalities having the

same periods as the waves ; That dispersion results from the greater number of coincidences as

the waves get shorter ; That the polarisation by reflection is caused only by that component

of the transverse motion in the medium which is in the plane of

incidence and results from the passage of the light from a space

without, or with few, inequalities, through a surface into a

space in which there are more inequalities ; That the metallic reflection results from the relative smallness of

the dimensions of the molecules compared with the length of the

wave and the closeness of their piling when the waves pass from