Page:The Foundations of Science (1913).djvu/520

502 velocities of bodies with reference to the ether, but the velocities of bodies with regard to one another. Too many different experiments have given concordant results for us not to feel tempted to attribute to this principle of relativity a value comparable to that, for example, of the principle of equivalence. In any case, it is proper to see to what consequences this way of looking at things would lead us and then to submit these consequences to the control of experiment.

Let us see what the principle of the equality of action and reaction becomes in the theory of Lorentz. Consider an electron A which for any cause begins to move; it produces a perturbation in the ether; at the end of a certain time, this perturbation reaches another electron B, which will be disturbed from its position of equilibrium. In these conditions there can not be equality between action and reaction, at least if we do not consider the ether, but only the electrons, which alone are observable, since our matter is made of electrons.

In fact it is the electron A which has disturbed the electron B; even in case the electron B should react upon A, this reaction could be equal to the action, but in no case simultaneous, since the electron B can begin to move only after a certain time, necessary for the propagation. Submitting the problem to a more exact calculation, we reach the following result: Suppose a Hertz discharger placed at the focus of a parabolic mirror to which it is mechanically attached; this discharger emits electromagnetic waves, and the mirror reflects all these waves in the same direction; the discharger therefore will radiate energy in a determinate direction. Well, the calculation shows that the discharger recoils like a cannon which has shot out a projectile. In the case of the cannon, the recoil is the natural result of the equality of action and reaction. The cannon recoils because the projectile upon which it has acted reacts upon it. But here it is no longer the same. What has been sent out is no longer a material projectile: it is energy, and energy has no mass: it has