Page:The principle of relativity (1920).djvu/18

 unified, coherent and fruitful description of observed facts. In proportion as a theory becomes complex it loses in usefulness—a theory which is obliged to requisition a whole array of arbitrary assumptions in order to explain special facts is practically worse than useless, as it serves to disjoin, rather than to unite, the several groups of facts. The optical experiments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century showed the impossibility of constructing a simple ether theory, which would be amenable to analytic treatment and would at the same time stimulate further progress. It should be observed that it could scarcely be shown that no logically consistent ether theory was possible; indeed in 1910, H. A. Wilson offered a consissent ether theory which was at least quite neutral with respect to all available optical data. But Wilson's ether is almost wholly negative—its only virtue being that it does not directly contradict observed facts. Neither any direct confirmation nor a direct refutation is possible and it does not throw any light on the various optical phenomena. A theory like this being practically useless stands self-condemned.

We must now consider the problem of relative motion of ether and matter from the point of view of electrical theory. From 1860 the identity of light as an electromagnetic vector became gradually established as a result of the brilliant "displacement current" hypothesis of Clerk Maxwell and his further analytical investigations. The elastic solid ether became gradually transformed into the electromagnetic one. Maxwell succeeded in giving a fairly satisfactory account of all ordinary optical phenomena and little room was left for any serious doubts as regards the general validity of Maxwell's theory. Hertz's researches on electric waves, first carried out in 1886, succeeded in furnishing a strong experimental confirmation