spond to a steady magnetic field), and that it is at the same time endowed with the power (which is requisite for the explanation of electric phenomena) of resisting the rotation of any element of volume.[1] But when the aether moves irrotationally in the fashion which corresponds to a steady magnetic field, each element of volume acquires after a finite time a rotatory displacement from its original orientation, in consequence of the motion, and it might therefore be expected that the quasi-elastic power of resisting rotation would be called into play—i.e., that a steady magnetic field would develop electric phenomena.[2]
A further objection to all models in which magnetic force corresponds to velocity is that a strong magnetic field, being in such models represented by a steady drift of the aether, might be expected to influence the velocity of propagation of light, The existence of such an effect appears, however, to be disproved by the experiments of Sir Oliver Lodge;[3] at any rate, unless it is assumed that the aether has an inertia at least of the same order of magnitude as that of ponderable matter, in which case the motion might be too slow to be measurable.
Again, the evidence in favour of the rotatory as opposed to the linear character of magnetic phenomena has perhaps, on the whole, been strengthened since Thomson originally based his conclusion on the magnetic rotation of light. This brings us to the consideration of an experimental discovery.
In 1879 E. H. Hall,[4] at that time a student at Baltimore,
- ↑ Larmor (loc. cit.) suggested the analogy of a liquid filled with magnetic molecules under the action of an external magnetic field.
It has often been objected to the mathematical conception of a perfect fluid that it contains no safeguard against slipping between adjacent layers, so that there is no justification for the usual assumption that the motion of a perfect fluid is continuous. Larmor remarked that a rotational elasticity, such as is attributed to the medium above considered, furnishes precisely such a safeguard; and that without some property of this kind a continuous frictionless fluid cannot be imagined. - ↑ Larmor proposed to avoid this by assuming that the rotation which is resisted by an element of volume of the aether is the vector sum of the series of differential rotations which it has experienced.
- ↑ Phil. Trans. clxxxix (1897), p. 149.
- ↑ Am. Jour. Math. ii, p. 287; Am. J. Sci. xix, p. 200, and xx, p. 161; Phil. Mag. ix, p. 225, and x, p. 301.
