III. Inertia and Radiation
(11) The Electromagnetic Wake.[1] Before going farther it is important to point out what we can draw from the point of view to which we have now come. Electrified centres, whose existence is experimentally proven, whose charge we know in absolute units, are movable with respect to a fixed ether defined according to the equations of Hertz, without its having been necessary for us to have recourse to dynamic principles to arrive at this point of view.
To what extent can the known properties of matter be deduced from these two ideas of the electron and the ether, and is it necessary to add something to them in order to build up a synthesis? We are going to see rapidly and definitely from our idea of the electron, how it is sufficient to represent at the same time the inertia of matter, its dynamic properties, also how it can emit and absorb the radiations which the ether transmits.
The possibility of conceiving of inertia, mass, not as a fundamental idea, but as a consequence of the laws of electromagnetism, is a conception which owes its origin to an important memoir published in 1881 by Professor J. J. Thomson.[2] He studies there, basing his assumptions on the existence of the displacement currents of Maxwell, the electromagnetic field accompanying an electrified sphere in motion. This motion implies a change in the electric field at a point fixed with respect to the medium, and this displacement current immediately produces a magnetic field according to the ideas of Maxwell. The necessity of a convection current is pointed out later. The magnetic field thus produced, identical with that of an element of current parallel to the velocity of the moving charge, is proportional at each point to that velocity, at least, if it does not approach too nearly to that of light.
The creation of a magnetic field at the time of setting the charged centre in motion implies an expenditure of energy, energy of selfinduction of the convection current, proportional to a first approximation to the square of the velocity, for those velocities which are small compared to the velocity of light. It is thus an expression of the same form as that of ordinary kinetic energy. A part, at least, of the inertia of an electrified body, of its capacity for kinetic energy, is thus a consequence of its electric charge.
Moreover, the magnetic field thus produced, and the electric field as well, modified by the velocity as it approaches more nearly to that of light, constitute around the electrified centre in translation a wake which accompanies it in its translation through the ether without change so long as the velocity remains constant. It is besides necessary
- ↑ Le Sillage Electro-magnétique.
- ↑ J. J. Thomson, Phil. Mag. t. 11, p. 229. 1881.
