In other cases, ions are found still larger than those of saline vapours, as, for example, those produced by phosphorus. It has long been known that air in the neighbourhood of phosphorus becomes a conductor, and the fact, pointed out as far back as 1885 by Matteucci, has been well studied by various experimenters, by MM. Elster and Geitel in 1890, for instance. On the other hand, in 1893 Mr Barus established that the approach of a stick of phosphorus brings about the condensation of water vapour, and we really have before us, therefore, in this instance, an ionisation. M. Bloch has succeeded in disentangling the phenomena, which are here very complex, and in showing that the ions produced are of considerable dimensions; for their speed in the same conditions is on the average a thousand times less than that of ions due to the X rays. M. Bloch has established also that the conductivity of recently-prepared gases, already studied by several authors, was analogous to that which is produced by phosphorus, and that it is intimately connected with the presence of the very tenuous solid or liquid dust which these gases carry with them, while the ions are of the same order of magnitude. These large ions exist, moreover, in small quantities in the atmosphere; and M. Langevin lately succeeded in revealing their presence.
It may happen, and this not without singularly complicating matters, that the ions which were in the midst of material molecules produce, as the result of collisions, new divisions in these last. Other ions are thus born, and this production is in part compensated for by recombinations between ions of opposite signs. The impacts will be more active in the event of the gas being placed in a field of force and of the pressure being slight, the speed attained being then greater and allowing the active force to reach a high value. The energy necessary for the production of an ion is, in fact, according to Professor Rutherford and Professor Stark, something considerable, and it much exceeds the analogous force in electrolytic decomposition.
It is therefore in tubes of rarefied gas that this ionisation by impact will be particularly felt. This gives us the reason for the aspect presented by Geissler tubes. Generally, in the case of discharges, new ions produced by the molecules struck come to add themselves to the electrons produced, as will be seen, by the cathode. A full discussion has led to the interpretation of all the known facts, and to our understanding, for instance, why there exist bright or dark spaces in certain regions of the tube. M. Pellat, in particular, has given some very fine examples of this concordance between the theory and the facts he has skilfully observed.
In all the circumstances, then, in which ions appear, their formation has doubtless been provoked by a mechanism analogous to that of the shock. The X rays, if they are attributable to sudden variations in the ether—that is to say, a variation of the two vectors of Hertz—themselves produce within the atom a kind of electric impulse which breaks it into two electrified fragments; i.e. the positive centre, the size of the molecule itself, and the negative centre, constituted by an electron a thousand times smaller. Round these two centres, at the ordinary temperature, are agglomerated by attraction other molecules, and in this manner the ions whose properties have just been studied are formed.
§ 4. ELECTRONS IN METALS
The success of the ionic hypothesis as an interpretation of the conductivity of electrolytes and gases has suggested the desire to try if a similar hypothesis can represent the ordinary conductivity of metals. We are thus led to conceptions which at first sight seem audacious because they are contrary to our habits of mind. They must not, however, be rejected on that account. Electrolytic dissociation at first certainly appeared at least as strange; yet it has ended by forcing itself upon us, and we could, at the present day, hardly dispense with the image it presents to us.
The idea that the conductivity of metals is not essentially different from that of electrolytic liquids or gases, in the sense that the passage of the current is connected with the transport of small electrified particles, is already of old date. It was enunciated by W. Weber, and afterwards developed by Giese, but has only obtained its true scope through the effect of recent discoveries. It was the researches of Riecke, later, of Drude, and, above all, those of J.J. Thomson, which have allowed it to assume an acceptable form. All these attempts are connected however with the general theory of Lorentz, which we will examine later.
It will be admitted that metallic atoms can, like the saline molecule in a solution, partially dissociate themselves. Electrons, very much smaller than atoms, can move through the structure, considerable to them, which is constituted by the atom from which they have just been detached. They may be compared to the molecules of a gas which is enclosed in a porous body. In ordinary conditions, notwithstanding the great speed with which they are animated, they are unable to travel long distances, because they quickly find their road barred by a material atom. They have to undergo innumerable impacts, which throw them first in one direction and then in another. The passage of a current is a sort of flow of these electrons in a determined direction. This electric flow brings, however, no modification to the material medium traversed, since every electron which disappears at any point is replaced by another which appears at once, and in all metals the electrons are identical.
This hypothesis leads us to anticipate certain facts which experience confirms. Thus J.J. Thomson shows that if, in certain conditions, a conductor is placed in a magnetic field, the ions have to describe an epicycloid, and their journey is thus lengthened, while the electric resistance must increase. If the field is in the direction of the displacement, they describe helices round the lines of force and the resistance is again augmented, but in different proportions. Various experimenters have noted phenomena of this kind in different substances.
For a long time it has been noticed that a relation exists between the calorific and the electric conductivity; the relation of these two conductivities is sensibly the same for all metals. The modern theory tends to show simply that it must indeed be so. Calorific conductivity is due, in fact, to an exchange of electrons between the hot and the cold regions, the heated electrons having the greater velocity, and consequently the more considerable energy. The calorific exchanges then obey laws similar to those which govern electric exchanges; and calculation even leads to the exact values which the measurements have given. [31]