Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

The extent to which the light waves reach and flow might well be called the lighted or luminous field, and in that field the effect of the aetherial light waves would be manifested and seen.

Now, in a similar manner, when any body is electrified, the electric waves spread out on every side of the electrified body, and the extent to which the waves spread out form what is known as an electric field.

So that an electric field may be defined as any region or space in which electric energy is manifested by means of the aetherial electric waves, and across which induction may take place.

Thus, for example, let E be an electrified body (Fig. 9), then it will generate electric waves which will speed from the body with a velocity equal to that of light. If the body be a sphere, then the waves will be spherical in shape, and will proceed from the generating source in the shape of concentric spheres as indicated in the figure. Before proceeding any further, it is necessary that we should look at the electric field from the physical aspect, with a view to discover something of what takes place therein. As has already been indicated, all electric phenomena are due to motions of the universal Aether.

It was left for Faraday to give us a true conception of an electric field, and for Maxwell to perfect that conception and give us a physical aspect of the same. Faraday conceived that stretching out from a magnet or electrified body through space, that is, through the Aether, were what he called “Lines of Force,” and that these lines of force indicated not only the direction of the magnetic and electric forces, but also their intensity or power.

Where the lines of force were closest together, there the electric or magnetic energy was the greatest and most intense; and where they were the farthest apart, there the field was weakest in energy. An illustration of the magnetic lines of force may be obtained by placing a piece of paper over a magnet, and then strewing iron filings over the same, when it will be seen that the iron filings will arrange themselves in certain curved lines, which Faraday called Magnetic Lines of Force. In this way Faraday mapped out the lines of force, relative not only to single magnets, but also to magnets with poles placed in various positions relatively to poles of other magnets.

Now as there are lines of force which reveal the intensity and direction of the magnetic energy, so there are lines of force radiating out from electrified bodies which reveal the intensity and power of the electric field. The electric lines of force are radial, and are shown in the figure (Fig. 9) by the straight lines D F, D H, D K.

If an electrified pith ball, for example, be hung up in a room, then the lines of force, which extend from the ball, indicate the stress in the Aether surrounding the pith ball, so that if a hair be placed across these lines of force, any movement of the pith ball will be indicated by the motion of the hair.

It was Clerk Maxwell, however, who gave to the world a true physical conception of Faraday's Lines of Force, in his paper on “Physical Lines of Force.”[24]