Further, around the sun there must also exist not imaginary but real physical lines of force which indicate the electric and magnetic forces, and which are made real by the atomic character of the Aether that surrounds it; and those lines of force would be closer together the nearer they got to the sun on account of the electric density of the electric Aether, which coincides with the density of the Aether from the gravitative standpoint. There would also be aetherial equipotential spheres, or rather oblate spheroids around the sun, as the sun is not strictly a sphere, its polar diameter being less than its equatorial diameter.
Let us therefore endeavour to picture the sun under these conditions as the centre of our solar system. Let S be the sun (Fig. 10), and the lines A A', B B', C C', etc. represent Equipotential Surfaces, Fig. 11 being a vertical section and Fig. 10 being an equatorial section. In Fig. 11 the sections of the equipotential surfaces would be vertical, while in Fig. 10 the sections of the equipotential surfaces would be horizontal, while the electric lines of force would be radial, as all electric radiations take place in straight lines, as we shall see was proved by Hertz, later on. We will suppose that the sun is stationary, as the question of the movement of the sun, both axially and through space, will be considered in a subsequent article.
Then the question arises, How far does the sun's electric field extend? That is rather a difficult question to answer, but the correct answer would be, “As far as the sun's light extends, so far does the sun's electric field extend.” From the electro-magnetic theory of light we know that wherever there are light waves, there are electro-magnetic waves, though at the present moment we are only dealing with the electric aspect of those waves.
We know that the aetherial light waves reach at least as far as Neptune, a distance of 2,750,000,000 miles, therefore we know that the sun's electric field must also extend to that distance. How much further in space it extends we cannot tell, because the data on which to form a basis is inadequate.
Thus we learn that the sun's electric field extends east and west for that enormous distance, but we cannot say that it extends the same distance north and south. Now why is that? The first reason I should give is the well-known experiment of a revolving body, by which we learn that when a body is revolving, as the sun for example, the atmosphere around it would seek to extend itself east and west, owing to the Centrifugal Force so called. But a better reason than that will be found from an analogy of a magnetized body. Faraday has shown in his drawings illustrating lines of force, that if a spherical body is magnetized, the magnetic lines of force extend in circles east and west, but go out into space in almost straight lines north, and south as the preceding figure shows.
Therefore, accepting Faraday's experiment as the basis for our conception of the magnetic lines of force in the sun's electric field, we come to the conclusion that the electric field around the sun extends east and west, while the lines of force, north and south, are more or less radial into space as depicted in the figure.
Throughout the whole of the field, the electric potential, at different distances from the sun, would differ in accordance with all experiment and observation. The greatest electric potential would therefore be nearest the sun's surface, and would be greatest in the equatorial regions of the sun, in accordance with a well-known rule which determines electric density and electric potential on conductors.