Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

Thus we learn from experiment, and from Ampère's theory also, that magnetism is directly associated with circulating currents of electricity, and that wherever we get currents of electricity circulating round any atom or body, there we get all the phenomena associated with magnetism. That is to say, we shall have such phenomena as magnetic fields, magnetic lines of force, magnetic induction, and the production of permanent magnets by electricity.

Further, with reference to the identity of electricity and magnetism, Faraday has conclusively proved their relation to each other; and I would strongly advise any reader who desires further light on the subject to carefully read paragraphs 3265-3269 in his Experimental Researches, where he will find experiments which place the identity of electricity and magnetism beyond the possibility of doubt. In paragraph 3265 he writes: “The well-known relation of the electric and magnetic forces may be thus stated. Let two rings in planes at right angles to each other represent them. If a current of electricity be sent round the ring E in the direction marked, then lines of magnetic force will be produced. As these rings represent the lines of electro-dynamic force and of magnetic force respectively, they will serve for a standard of comparison.”

“I have elsewhere called the electric current or the line of electro-dynamic force an axis of power having contrary forces exactly equal in amount in contrary directions (517). The line of magnetic force may be described in precisely the same terms, and these two axes of power considered as right lines are perpendicular to each other,” etc.

Again in 3267 he adds: “Like electric currents or lines of force, or axes of power when placed side by side attract each other. This is well known and well illustrated when wires carrying such currents are placed parallel to each other. But like magnetic axes of power or lines of force repel each other. The parallel case to that of electric currents is given by placing two magnetic needles side by side with like poles in the same direction.”

Then in 3268 he shows that these effects are not merely contrasts, but they are contrasts which coincide when the two axes of power at right angles to each other are considered. Then in 3269 he adds: “The mutual relation of the magnetic lines of force and the electric axis of power has been known since the time of Oersted and Ampère,” and further states he is of the opinion that “the magnetic lines have a physical existence the same as the electric lines,” and having that opinion, asks whether “the lines have a dynamic condition analogous to the electric axis to which they are so closely and inevitably associated, or whether they consist in a state of tension of the Aether round the electric axis, and may therefore be considered as static in their nature.” Thus Faraday proved the intimate and close relationship that existed between the electric current and the circles which represent the magnetic force in association with that current; and, what is more noticeable, he asks whether such magnetic results are due to a state of tension in the Aether around the axis of the electric current, evidently being of the opinion that the Aether played an important part in the phenomena of magnetism, as well as in electricity, as other parts of his writings abundantly show.

If, therefore, there is this close identity between electricity and magnetism, then in view of the fact that all electricity is due to the motions of the universal Aether, it must follow that all magnetism is also due to motions of the same aetherial medium, which is as universal as it is invisible.

What these motions are has already been indicated by previous statements in this article, being comprised of circular or rotatory motions of the aetherial electric medium about any body, whether that body be an atom, planet, or sun or star. Such a conclusion as this is perfectly in harmony with Maxwell's electro-magnetic theory of light, as the conclusion that he arrived at in that theory was, that the light waves were identical in nature and character with electro-magnetic waves produced by an electro-magnetic source.

Up to the present we have only dealt with the electric character of those waves, and have therefore now to deal with the magnetic character of the same. So that throughout the whole realm of space, and indeed wherever there is Aether, there we have the conditions which give rise to magnetic phenomena, such as those already indicated.

It matters not whether it be in the atomic systems whose combinations comprise all material forms of life with which we are familiar, or whether it is in the systems of planets that revolve around their central sun, or whether it be in the constellations that fill the universe, wherever we find the Aether, there we find the conditions in that Aether which will produce all the results ordinarily produced by magnetism, or with which magnetism is associated, and it is to the application of these phenomena to our solar system that we will now turn our attention.