SUMMARY.
The estimates of this book, and of Modern Views of Electricity, are that the ether of space is a continuous, incompressible, stationary, fundamental substance or perfect fluid, with what is equivalent to an inertia-coefficient of 1012 grammes per c.c.; that matter is composed of modified and electrified specks, or minute structures of ether, which are amenable to mechanical as well as to electrical force and add to the optical or electric density of the medium; and that elastic-rigidity and all potential energy are due to excessively fine-grained etherial circulation, with an intrinsic kinetic energy of the order 1033 ergs per cubic centimetre.
APPENDIX 1
ON GRAVITY AND ETHERIAL TENSION
In the arithmetical examples of Chapter [IX] we reckon merely the force between two bodies; but the Newtonian tension mentioned in Chapter [VIII] does not signify that force, but rather a certain condition or state of the medium, to variations in which, from place to place, the force is due. This Newtonian tension is a much greater quantity than the force to which it gives rise; and, moreover, it exists at every point of space, instead of being integrated all through an attracted body.
It rises to a maximum value near the surface of any spherical mass; and if the radius be R and the gravitational intensity is g, the tension at the surface is T0 = gR. At any distance r, further away, the tension is T = gR²/r.
This follows at once thus:—