The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 29

1 It undergoes a first increase because the potential of _A'B'_ with respect to the circuit _C_ is not the same as that of _AB_;

2 It takes a second increment because it must be increased by the potentials of the elements _AA'_, _BB'_ with respect to _C_.

It is this _double_ increment which represents the work of the force to which the portion _AB_ seems subjected.

If, on the contrary, [alpha][beta] were isolated, the potential would undergo only the first increase, and this first increment alone would measure the work of the force which acts on _AB_.

In the second place, there could be no continuous rotation without sliding contact, and, in fact, that, as we have seen _a propos_ of closed currents, is an immediate consequence of the existence of an electrodynamic potential.

In Faraday's experiment, if the magnet is fixed and if the part of the current exterior to the magnet runs along a movable wire, that movable part may undergo a continuous rotation. But this does not mean to say that if the contacts of the wire with the magnet were suppressed, and an _open_ current were to run along the wire, the wire would still take a movement of continuous rotation.

I have just said in fact that an _isolated_ element is not acted upon in the same way as a movable element making part of a closed circuit.

Another difference: The action of a closed solenoid on a closed current is null according to experiment and according to the two theories. Its action on an open current would be null according to Ampere; it would not be null according to Helmholtz. From this follows an important consequence. We have given above three definitions of magnetic force.

The third has no meaning here since an element of current is no longer acted upon by a single force. No more has the first any meaning. What, in fact, is a magnetic pole? It is the extremity of an indefinite linear magnet. This magnet may be replaced by an indefinite solenoid. For the definition of magnetic force to have any meaning, it would be necessary that the action exercised by an open current on an indefinite solenoid should depend only on the position of the extremity of this solenoid, that is to say, that the action on a closed solenoid should be null. Now we have just seen that such is not the case.

On the other hand, nothing prevents our adopting the second definition, which is founded on the measurement of the director couple which tends to orientate the magnetic needle.

But if it is adopted, neither the effects of induction nor the electrodynamic effects will depend solely on the distribution of the lines of force in this magnetic field.

III. DIFFICULTIES RAISED BY THESE THEORIES.--The theory of Helmholtz is in advance of that of Ampere; it is necessary, however, that all the difficulties should be smoothed away. In the one as in the other, the phrase 'magnetic field' has no meaning, or, if we give it one, by a more or less artificial convention, the ordinary laws so familiar to all electricians no longer apply; thus the electromotive force induced in a wire is no longer measured by the number of lines of force met by this wire.

And our repugnance does not come alone from the difficulty of renouncing inveterate habits of language and of thought. There is something more.

If we do not believe in action at a distance, electrodynamic phenomena must be explained by a modification of the medium. It is precisely this modification that we call 'magnetic field.' And then the electrodynamic effects must depend only on this field.

All these difficulties arise from the hypothesis of open currents.

IV. MAXWELL'S THEORY.--Such were the difficulties raised by the dominant theories when Maxwell appeared, who with a stroke of the pen made them all vanish. To his mind, in fact, all currents are closed currents.

Maxwell a.s.sumes that if in a dielectric the electric field happens to vary, this dielectric becomes the seat of a particular phenomenon, acting on the galvanometer like a current, and which he calls _current of displacement_.

If then two conductors bearing contrary charges are put in communication by a wire, in this wire during the discharge there is an open current of conduction; but there are produced at the same time in the surrounding dielectric, currents of displacement which close this current of conduction.

We know that Maxwell's theory leads to the explanation of optical phenomena, which would be due to extremely rapid electrical oscillations.

At that epoch such a conception was only a bold hypothesis, which could be supported by no experiment.

At the end of twenty years, Maxwell's ideas received the confirmation of experiment. Hertz succeeded in producing systems of electric oscillations which reproduce all the properties of light, and only differ from it by the length of their wave; that is to say as violet differs from red. In some measure he made the synthesis of light.

It might be said that Hertz has not demonstrated directly Maxwell's fundamental idea, the action of the current of displacement on the galvanometer. This is true in a sense. What he has shown in sum is that electromagnetic induction is not propagated instantaneously as was supposed; but with the speed of light.

But to suppose there is no current of displacement, and induction is propagated with the speed of light; or to suppose that the currents of displacement produce effects of induction, and that the induction is propagated instantaneously, _comes to the same thing_.

This can not be seen at the first glance, but it is proved by an a.n.a.lysis of which I must not think of giving even a summary here.

V. ROWLAND'S EXPERIMENT.--But as I have said above, there are two kinds of open conduction currents. There are first the currents of discharge of a condenser or of any conductor whatever.

There are also the cases in which electric discharges describe a closed contour, being displaced by conduction in one part of the circuit and by convection in the other part.

For open currents of the first sort, the question might be considered as solved; they were closed by the currents of displacement.

For open currents of the second sort, the solution appeared still more simple. It seemed that if the current were closed, it could only be by the current of convection itself. For that it sufficed to a.s.sume that a 'convection current,' that is to say a charged conductor in motion, could act on the galvanometer.

But experimental confirmation was lacking. It appeared difficult in fact to obtain a sufficient intensity even by augmenting as much as possible the charge and the velocity of the conductors. It was Rowland, an extremely skillful experimenter, who first triumphed over these difficulties. A disc received a strong electrostatic charge and a very great speed of rotation. An astatic magnetic system placed beside the disc underwent deviations.

The experiment was made twice by Rowland, once in Berlin, once in Baltimore. It was afterwards repeated by Himstedt. These physicists even announced that they had succeeded in making quant.i.tative measurements.

In fact, for twenty years Rowland's law was admitted without objection by all physicists. Besides everything seemed to confirm it. The spark certainly does produce a magnetic effect. Now does it not seem probable that the discharge by spark is due to particles taken from one of the electrodes and transferred to the other electrode with their charge? Is not the very spectrum of the spark, in which we recognize the lines of the metal of the electrode, a proof of it? The spark would then be a veritable current of convection.

On the other hand, it is also admitted that in an electrolyte the electricity is carried by the ions in motion. The current in an electrolyte would therefore be also a current of convection; now, it acts on the magnetic needle.

The same for cathode rays. Crookes attributed these rays to a very subtile matter charged with electricity and moving with a very great velocity. He regarded them, in other words, as currents of convection.

Now these cathode rays are deviated by the magnet. In virtue of the principle of action and reaction, they should in turn deviate the magnetic needle. It is true that Hertz believed he had demonstrated that the cathode rays do not carry electricity, and that they do not act on the magnetic needle. But Hertz was mistaken. First of all, Perrin succeeded in collecting the electricity carried by these rays, electricity of which Hertz denied the existence; the German scientist appears to have been deceived by effects due to the action of X-rays, which were not yet discovered. Afterwards, and quite recently, the action of the cathode rays on the magnetic needle has been put in evidence.

Thus all these phenomena regarded as currents of convection, sparks, electrolytic currents, cathode rays, act in the same manner on the galvanometer and in conformity with Rowland's law.

VI. THEORY OF LORENTZ.--We soon went farther. According to the theory of Lorentz, currents of conduction themselves would be true currents of convection. Electricity would remain inseparably connected with certain material particles called _electrons_. The circulation of these electrons through bodies would produce voltaic currents. And what would distinguish conductors from insulators would be that the one could be traversed by these electrons while the others would arrest their movements.

The theory of Lorentz is very attractive. It gives a very simple explanation of certain phenomena which the earlier theories, even Maxwell's in its primitive form, could not explain in a satisfactory way; for example, the aberration of light, the partial carrying away of luminous waves, magnetic polarization and the Zeeman effect.

Some objections still remained. The phenomena of an electric system seemed to depend on the absolute velocity of translation of the center of gravity of this system, which is contrary to the idea we have of the relativity of s.p.a.ce. Supported by M. Cremieu, M. Lippmann has presented this objection in a striking form. Imagine two charged conductors with the same velocity of translation; they are relatively at rest. However, each of them being equivalent to a current of convection, they ought to attract one another, and by measuring this attraction we could measure their absolute velocity.

"No!" replied the partisans of Lorentz. "What we could measure in that way is not their absolute velocity, but their relative velocity _with respect to the ether_, so that the principle of relativity is safe."

Whatever there may be in these latter objections, the edifice of electrodynamics, at least in its broad lines, seemed definitively constructed. Everything was presented under the most satisfactory aspect. The theories of Ampere and of Helmholtz, made for open currents which no longer existed, seemed to have no longer anything but a purely historic interest, and the inextricable complications to which these theories led were almost forgotten.

This quiescence has been recently disturbed by the experiments of M.

Cremieu, which for a moment seemed to contradict the result previously obtained by Rowland.

But fresh researches have not confirmed them, and the theory of Lorentz has victoriously stood the test.

The history of these variations will be none the less instructive; it will teach us to what pitfalls the scientist is exposed, and how he may hope to escape them.

THE VALUE OF SCIENCE