History of scientific ideas

by William Whewell

The nature of the opposition of properties of which we speak may be stated thus:
The North pole of one magnet attracts the South pole of another magnet.
The North pole of one magnet repels the North pole of another magnet.
The South pole of one magnet repels the South pole of another magnet.
The South pole of one magnet attracts the North pole of another magnet.

It will be observed that the contrariety of position which is indicated by putting the South pole for the North pole in either magnet, is accompanied by the [361] opposition of mechanical effect which is expressed by changing attraction into repulsion and repulsion into attraction: and thus we have the general feature of Polarity,—A contrast of properties corresponding to a contrast of positions.

3. Electricity.—When the phenomena of Electricity came to be studied, it appeared that they involved relations in some respects Analogous to those of magnetism.

Two kinds of electricity were distinguished, the positive and the negative; and it appeared that two bodies electrized positively, or two electrized negatively, repelled each other, like two north or two south magnetic poles; while a positively and a negatively electrized body attracted each other, like the north and south poles of two magnets. In conductors of an oblong form, the electricity could easily be made to distribute itself so that one end should be positively and one end negatively electrized; and then such conductors acted on each other exactly as magnets would do.

But in conductors, however electrized, there is no peculiar point which can permanently be considered as the pole. The distribution of electricity in the conductor depends upon external circumstances: and thus, although the phenomena offer the general character of polarity—alternative results corresponding to alternative positions,—they cannot be referred to poles. Some other mode of representing the forces must be adopted than that which makes them emanate from permanent points as in a magnet.

The phenomena of attraction and repulsion in electrized bodies were conveniently represented by means of the hypothesis of two electric fluids, a positive and a negative one, which were supposed to be distributed in the bodies. Of these fluids, it was supposed that each repelled its own parts and attracted those of the opposite fluid: and it was found that this hypothesis explained all the obvious laws of electric action. Here then we have the phenomena of polarization explained by a new kind of machinery:—two opposite fluids [362] distributed in bodies, and supplying them, so to speak, with their polar forces. This hypothesis not only explains electrical attraction, but also the electrical spark: namely, thus: when two bodies, of which the neighbouring surfaces are charged with the two opposite fluids, approach near to each other, the mutual attraction of the fluids becomes more and more intense, till at last the excess of fluid on the one body breaks through the air and rushes to the other body, in a form accompanied by light and noise. When this transfer has taken place, the attraction ceases, the positive and the negative fluid having neutralized each other. Their effort was to unite; and this union being effected, there is no longer any force in action. Bodies in their natural unexcited condition may be considered as occupied by a combination of the two fluids: and hence we see how the production of either kind of electricity is necessarily accompanied with the production of an equivalent amount of the opposite kind.

4. Voltaic Electricity.—Such is the case in Franklinic electricity,—that which is excited by the common electrical machine. In studying Voltaic electricity, we are led to the conviction that the fluid which is in a condition of momentary equilibrium in electrized conductors, exists in the state of a Current in the voltaic circuit. And here we find polar relations of a new kind existing among the forces. Two voltaic Currents attract each other when they are moving in the same, and repel each other when they are moving in opposite, directions.

But we find, in addition to these, other polar relations of a more abstruse kind, and which the supposition of two fluids does not so readily explain. For instance, if such fluids existed, distinct from each other, it might be expected that it would be possible to exhibit one of them separate from the other. Yet in all the phenomena of electromotive currents, we attempt in vain to obtain one kind of electricity separately. ‘I have not,’ says Mr. Faraday[2], ‘been able to find a [363] single fact which could be adduced to prove the theory of two electricities rather than one, in electric currents; or, admitting the hypothesis of two electricities, have I been able to perceive the slightest grounds that one electricity can be more powerful than the other, or that it can be present without the other, or that it can be varied or in the slightest degree affected without a corresponding variation in the other.’ ‘Thus,’ he adds, ‘the polar character of the powers is rigorous and complete.’ Thus, we too may remark, all the superfluous and precarious parts gradually drop off from the hypothesis which we devise in order to represent polar phenomena; and the abstract notion of Polarity—of equal and opposite powers called into existence by a common condition—remains unincumbered with extraneous machinery.

[2] Researches, 516.

5. Light.—Another very important example of the application of the Idea of Polarity is that supplied by the discovery of the polarization of light. A ray of light may, by various processes, be modified, so that it has different properties according to its different sides, although this difference is not perceptible by any common effects. If, for instance, a ray thus modified, pass perpendicularly through a circular glass, and fall upon the eye, we may turn the glass round and round in its frame, and we shall make no difference in the brightness of the spot which we see. But if, instead of a glass, we look through a longitudinal slice of tourmaline, the spot is alternately dark and bright as we turn the crystal through successive quadrants. Here we have a contrast of Properties (dark and bright) corresponding to a contrast of positions, (the position of a line east and west being contrasted with the position north and south,) which, as we have said, is the general character of Polarity. It was with a view of expressing this character that the term Polarization was originally introduced. Malus was forced by his discoveries into the use of this expression. ‘We find,’ he says, in 1811, ‘that light acquires properties which are relative only to the sides of the ray,—which are the same for the north and south sides of the ray, (using [364] the points of the compass for description’s sake only,) and which are different when we go from the north and south to the east or to the west sides of the ray. I shall give the name of poles to these sides of the ray, and shall call polarization the modification which gives to light these properties relative to these poles. I have put off hitherto the admission of this term into the description of the physical phenomena with which we have to do: I did not dare to introduce it into the Memoirs in which I published my last observations: but the variety of forms in which this new phenomenon appears, and the difficulty of describing them, compel me to admit this new expression; which signifies simply the modification which light has undergone in acquiring new properties which are not relative to the direction of the ray, but only to its sides considered at right angles to each other, and in a plane perpendicular to its direction.’