Physic and fiction / by S. Squire Sprigge.

  • Squire Sprigge
Date:
[1921]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physic and fiction / by S. Squire Sprigge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    321/328 page 305
    expletive ‘ ether/ Similarly, we must not advance against the claims of ether our inability to picture its existence save by what we call imagination ; and the non-appearance of anything alike perfectly uniform and omnipresent is in accordance with what might be expected. The right course is to test the claims made for the ether side by side with physical and chemical phenomena, so that we may advance in our understanding. In the ‘ Twelfth Kelvin Lecture ’ delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and pub¬ lished in Nature on March 17, 1921, and con¬ secutive numbers, a brief summary is given of the results of experimental research on the properties of the electrons. The lecturer, Sir William Bragg, pointed out that, as knowledge grows, the import¬ ance of the part played by the electron in the mechanics of the world grows clearer ; there are all the signs of progress along a road leading some¬ where, and continually the discovery is being made that some electron action phenomena are linked together between which we had hitherto seen no connection. ‘ Just as chemistry/ he says, ‘ has grown and prospered on its recognition of the unit of matter, so electrical science has already begun a new life, and, to all seeming, a most vigorous one, based on the understanding of Nature's unit of electricity. ... If the chemist has found so much profit in his recognition of the fact that Nature has just so many ways, and no more, of doing up parcels of matter, the electrician will surely gain u
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