A History of Science — Volume 3

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

To a person unaccustomed to think of seemingly solid matter as really composed of particles relatively wide apart, it is hard to understand the claim that ether penetrates the substance of solids—of glass, for example—and, to use Young's expression, which we have previously quoted, moves among them as freely as the wind moves through a grove of trees. This thought, however, presents few difficulties to the mind accustomed to philosophical speculation. But the question early arose in the mind of Fresnel whether the ether is not considerably affected by contact with the particles of solids. Some of his experiments led him to believe that a portion of the ether which penetrates among the molecules of tangible matter is held captive, so to speak, and made to move along with these particles. He spoke of such portions of the ether as "bound" ether, in contradistinction to the great mass of "free" ether. Half a century after Fresnel's death, when the ether hypothesis had become an accepted tenet of science, experiments were undertaken by Fizeau in France, and by Clerk-Maxwell in England, to ascertain whether any portion of ether is really thus bound to particles of matter; but the results of the experiments were negative, and the question is still undetermined.

While the undulatory theory of light was still fighting its way, another kind of evidence favoring the existence of an ether was put forward by Michael Faraday, who, in the course of his experiments in electrical and magnetic induction, was led more and more to perceive definite lines or channels of force in the medium subject to electro-magnetic influence. Faraday's mind, like that of Newton and many other philosophers, rejected the idea of action at a distance, and he felt convinced that the phenomena of magnetism and of electric induction told strongly for the existence of an invisible plenum everywhere in space, which might very probably be the same plenum that carries the undulations of light and radiant heat.

Then, about the middle of the century, came that final revolution of thought regarding the nature of energy which we have already outlined in the preceding chapter, and with that the case for ether was considered to be fully established. The idea that energy is merely a "mode of motion" (to adopt Tyndall's familiar phrase), combined with the universal rejection of the notion of action at a distance, made the acceptance of a plenum throughout space a necessity of thought—so, at any rate, it has seemed to most physicists of recent decades. The proof that all known forms of radiant energy move through space at the same rate of speed is regarded as practically a demonstration that but one plenum—one ether—is concerned in their transmission. It has, indeed, been tentatively suggested, by Professor J. Oliver Lodge, that there may be two ethers, representing the two opposite kinds of electricity, but even the author of this hypothesis would hardly claim for it a high degree of probability.

The most recent speculations regarding the properties of the ether have departed but little from the early ideas of Young and Fresnel. It is assumed on all sides that the ether is a continuous, incompressible body, possessing rigidity and elasticity. Lord Kelvin has even calculated the probable density of this ether, and its coefficient of rigidity. As might be supposed, it is all but infinitely tenuous as compared with any tangible solid, and its rigidity is but infinitesimal as compared with that of steel. In a word, it combines properties of tangible matter in a way not known in any tangible substance. Therefore we cannot possibly conceive its true condition correctly. The nearest approximation, according to Lord Kelvin, is furnished by a mould of transparent jelly. It is a crude, inaccurate analogy, of course, the density and resistance of jelly in particular being utterly different from those of the ether; but the quivers that run through the jelly when it is shaken, and the elastic tension under which it is placed when its mass is twisted about, furnish some analogy to the quivers and strains in the ether, which are held to constitute radiant energy, magnetism, and electricity.

The great physicists of the day being at one regarding the existence of this all-pervading ether, it would be a manifest presumption for any one standing without the pale to challenge so firmly rooted a belief. And, indeed, in any event, there seems little ground on which to base such a challenge. Yet it may not be altogether amiss to reflect that the physicist of to-day is no more certain of his ether than was his predecessor of the eighteenth century of the existence of certain alleged substances which he called phlogiston, caloric, corpuscles of light, and magnetic and electric fluids. It would be but the repetition of history should it chance that before the close of another century the ether should have taken its place along with these discarded creations of the scientific imagination of earlier generations. The philosopher of to-day feels very sure that an ether exists; but when he says there is "no doubt" of its existence he speaks incautiously, and steps beyond the bounds of demonstration. He does not KNOW that action cannot take place at a distance; he does not KNOW that empty space itself may not perform the functions which he ascribes to his space-filling ether.

Meantime, however, the ether, be it substance or be it only dream-stuff, is serving an admirable purpose in furnishing a fulcrum for modern physics. Not alone to the student of energy has it proved invaluable, but to the student of matter itself as well. Out of its hypothetical mistiness has been reared the most tenable theory of the constitution of ponderable matter which has yet been suggested—or, at any rate, the one that will stand as the definitive nineteenth-century guess at this "riddle of the ages." I mean, of course, the vortex theory of atoms—that profound and fascinating doctrine which suggests that matter, in all its multiform phases, is neither more nor less than ether in motion.

The author of this wonderful conception is Lord Kelvin. The idea was born in his mind of a happy union of mathematical calculations with concrete experiments. The mathematical calculations were largely the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, who, about the year 1858, had undertaken to solve some unique problems in vortex motions. Helmholtz found that a vortex whirl, once established in a frictionless medium, must go on, theoretically, unchanged forever. In a limited medium such a whirl may be V-shaped, with its ends at the surface of the medium. We may imitate such a vortex by drawing the bowl of a spoon quickly through a cup of water. But in a limitless medium the vortex whirl must always be a closed ring, which may take the simple form of a hoop or circle, or which may be indefinitely contorted, looped, or, so to speak, knotted. Whether simple or contorted, this endless chain of whirling matter (the particles revolving about the axis of the loop as the particles of a string revolve when the string is rolled between the fingers) must, in a frictionless medium, retain its form and whirl on with undiminished speed forever.

While these theoretical calculations of Helmholtz were fresh in his mind, Lord Kelvin (then Sir William Thomson) was shown by Professor P. G. Tait, of Edinburgh, an apparatus constructed for the purpose of creating vortex rings in air. The apparatus, which any one may duplicate, consisted simply of a box with a hole bored in one side, and a piece of canvas stretched across the opposite side in lieu of boards. Fumes of chloride of ammonia are generated within the box, merely to render the air visible. By tapping with the band on the canvas side of the box, vortex rings of the clouded air are driven out, precisely similar in appearance to those smoke-rings which some expert tobacco-smokers can produce by tapping on their cheeks, or to those larger ones which we sometimes see blown out from the funnel of a locomotive.

The advantage of Professor Tait's apparatus is its manageableness and the certainty with which the desired result can be produced. Before Lord Kelvin's interested observation it threw out rings of various sizes, which moved straight across the room at varying rates of speed, according to the initial impulse, and which behaved very strangely when coming in contact with one another. If, for example, a rapidly moving ring overtook another moving in the same path, the one in advance seemed to pause, and to spread out its periphery like an elastic band, while the pursuer seemed to contract, till it actually slid through the orifice of the other, after which each ring resumed its original size, and continued its course as if nothing had happened. When, on the other hand, two rings moving in slightly different directions came near each other, they seemed to have an attraction for each other; yet if they impinged, they bounded away, quivering like elastic solids. If an effort were made to grasp or to cut one of these rings, the subtle thing shrank from the contact, and slipped away as if it were alive.

And all the while the body which thus conducted itself consisted simply of a whirl in the air, made visible, but not otherwise influenced, by smoky fumes. Presently the friction of the surrounding air wore the ring away, and it faded into the general atmosphere—often, however, not until it had persisted for many seconds, and passed clear across a large room. Clearly, if there were no friction, the ring's inertia must make it a permanent structure. Only the frictionless medium was lacking to fulfil all the conditions of Helmholtz's indestructible vortices. And at once Lord Kelvin bethought him of the frictionless medium which physicists had now begun to accept—the all-pervading ether. What if vortex rings were started in this ether, must they not have the properties which the vortex rings in air had exhibited—inertia, attraction, elasticity? And are not these the properties of ordinary tangible matter? Is it not probable, then, that what we call matter consists merely of aggregations of infinitesimal vortex rings in the ether?