Aether and Matter; A Development of the Dynamical Relations of the Aether to Material Systems on the Basis of the Atomic Constitution of Matter, Inclu (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...k = I and = e-k. Thus we may have k and I both unity and = e-; so that no further change of scale in space and time is required, but only a diminution of (a, b, c) in the ratio e-k We derive the result, correct to the second order, that if the internal forces of a material system arise wholly from electrodynamic actions between the systems of electrons which constitute the atoms, then an effect of imparting to a steady material system a uniform velocity of translation is to produce a uniform contraction of the system in the direction of the motion, of amount e-or 1--v/c'. The electrons will occupy corresponding positions in this contracted system, but the aethereal displacements in the space around them will not correspond: if (/, g, h) and (a, b, c) are those of the moving system, then the electric and magnetic displacements at corresponding points of the fixed systems will be the values that the vectors This result follows more immediately from 110, which shows that corresponding densities of electrification are equal, while corresponding volumes are as t to unity. CHAP. Xl OPTICAL PROPAGATION IN MOVING MATTER 177 and -J (e-1 a, b + 4nrvh, c--lirvg) had at a time const. + vx/c before the instant considered when the scale of time is enlarged in the ratio eK As both the electric and magnetic vectors of radiation lie in the wave-front, it follows that in the two correlated systems, fixed and moving, the relative wave-fronts of radiation correspond, as also do the rays which are the paths of the radiant energy relative to the systems. The change of the time variable, in the comparison of radiations in the fixed and moving systems, involves the Doppler effect on the wave-length. The Correlation between a stationary and a moving Medium, ...