5. MATTER HAS DEFINITE STRUCTURE.
Every atom of every element is so like every other atom of the same element as to exhibit the same characteristics, size, weight, chemical activity, vibratory rate, etc., and it is thus shown conclusively that the structural form of the elemental particles is the same for each element, for such characteristic reactions as they exhibit could hardly be if they were mechanically unlike.
Of what form the atoms of an element may be is not very definitely known. The earlier philosophers assumed them to be hard round particles, but later thinkers have concluded that atoms of such a character are highly improbable, for they could not exhibit in this case the properties which the elements do exhibit. They have therefore dismissed such a conception from consideration. In place of this hypothesis has been substituted a very different idea, namely, that an atom is a vortex-ring[1] of ether floating in the ether, as a smoke-ring
puffed out by a locomotive in still air may float in the air and show various phenomena.
A vortex-ring produced in the air behaves in the most surprising manner.
Fig. 4.—Method of making vortex-rings and their behaviour.
1. It retains its ring form and the same material rotating as it starts with.
2. It can travel through the air easily twenty or thirty feet in a second without disruption.
3. Its line of motion when free is always at right angles to the plane of the ring.
4. It will not stand still unless compelled by some object. If stopped in the air it will start up itself to travel on without external help.
5. It possesses momentum and energy like a solid body.
6. It is capable of vibrating like an elastic body, making a definite number of such vibrations per second, the degree of elasticity depending upon the rate of vibration. The swifter the rotation, the more rigid and elastic it is.
7. It is capable of spinning on its own axis, and thus having rotary energy as well as translatory and vibratory.
8. It repels light bodies in front of it, and attracts into itself light bodies in its rear.
9. If projected along parallel with the top of a long table, it will fall upon it every time, just as a stone thrown horizontally will fall to the ground.
10. If two rings of the same size be travelling in the same line, and the rear one overtakes the other, the front one will enlarge its diameter, while the rear one will contract its own till it can go through the forward one, when each will recover its original diameter, and continue on in the same direction, but vibrating, expanding and contracting their diameters with regularity.
11. If two rings be moving in the same line, but in opposite directions, they will repel each other when near, and thus retard their speed. If one goes through the other, as in the former case, it may quite lose its velocity, and come to a standstill in the air till the other has moved
on to a distance, when it will start up in its former direction.
12. If two rings be formed side by side, they will instantly collide at their edges, showing strong attraction.
13. If the collision does not destroy them, they may either break apart at the point of the collision, and then weld together into a single ring with twice the diameter, and then move on as if a single ring had been formed, or they may simply bounce away from each other, in which case they always rebound in a plane at right angles to the plane of collision. That is, if they collided on their sides, they would rebound so that one went up and the other down.
14. Three may in like manner collide and fuse into a single ring.
Such rings formed in air by a locomotive may rise wriggling in the air to the height of several hundred feet, but they are soon dissolved and disappear. This is because the friction and viscosity of the air robs the rings of their substance and energy. If the air were without friction this could not happen, and the rings would then be persistent, and would retain all their qualities.
Suppose then that such rings were produced in a medium without friction as the ether is believed to be, they would be permanent structures with a variety of properties. They would occupy space, have definite form and dimensions, momentum, energy, attraction and repulsion, elasticity; obey the laws of motion, and so far behave quite like such matter as we know. For such reasons
it is thought by some persons to be not improbable that the atoms of matter are minute vortex-rings of ether in the ether. That which distinguishes the atom from the ether is the form of motion which is embodied in it, and if the motion were simply arrested, there would be nothing to distinguish the atom from the ether into which it dissolved. In other words, such a conception makes the atoms of matter a form of motion of the ether, and not a created something put into the ether.