Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/447

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On the Sub-Mechanics of the Universe.
429

The inversion is thus complete ; matter is the absence of mass, and the effort to bring the negative inequalities together is also an effort on the mass to recede. And since the actions are those of positive pressure there is no attraction involved ; the efforts being the result of the virtual diminution of the pressure inwards.

3. If instead of the negative inequalities as in the last article the inequalities are positive the efforts are reversed, tending to separate the inequalities, and the analysis would be the same, except that the curvature would be negative. And it is important to notice that if such positive inequalities exist the fact that they repel each other, i.e., that they would tend to scatter through space, together with the evidence that the number of inequalities, either positive or negative, occupy an indefinitely small space as compared with the total volume of the medium, places any importance such positive inequalities might have on a footing of indefinitely less importance than that of the negative inequalities which are caused to accumulate by gravitation ; and thus we have an explanation of any lack of evidence of any positive inequalities even if such exist.

4. Besides the positive and negative inequalities, there is another inequality which may easily be conceived and that is of fundamental importance. Whatever may be the cause it is possible to conceive that a number of grains may be removed from one position in the medium to another, the medium being otherwise uniform ; thus instituting a complex inequality as between two inequalities, one positive and the other negative ; the number of grains in excess in the one being exactly the same as the number of grains absent in the other.

The complex inequalities differ fundamentally from the gravitating inequalities, inasmuch as the former involve an absolute displacement of mass, while the latter have no effect on the mean position of the mass in the medium, and in respect of involving absolute displacement of mass the complex inequality corresponds with electricity.

Apart from the displacement of mass, the complex inequalities differ from the gravitating inequalities. In the complex inequalities the parameter of the dilatation is not the diameter of a grain, but one- half the linear dimension of the volume occupied by the grains dis- placed, taken as spherical.

The effort to revert in the case of the complex inequality is the product of the pressure multiplied by the product of the volume of the positive and negative inequalities, and again by the parameter, r . This is expressed when the positive and negative inequalities are at finite distances apart by

R being essentially negative, and the dimensions of the effort ( - R) are mlt" 2 , which express an effort to the displacement of mass.