It has also invaded optics; and by relying on
the principle of Doppler, Professor Michelson has succeeded in
obtaining from it an explanation of the length presented by the
spectral rays of even the most rarefied gases.
But however interesting are these results, they would not have
sufficed to overcome the repugnance of certain physicists for
speculations which, an imposing mathematical baggage notwithstanding,
seemed to them too hypothetical. The theory, moreover, stopped at the
molecule, and appeared to suggest no idea which could lead to the
discovery of the key to the phenomena where molecules exercise a
mutual influence on each other. The kinetic hypothesis, therefore,
remained in some disfavour with a great number of persons,
particularly in France, until the last few years, when all the recent
discoveries of the conductivity of gases and of the new radiations
came to procure for it a new and luxuriant efflorescence. It may be
said that the atomistic synthesis, but yesterday so decried, is to-day
triumphant.
The elements which enter into the earlier kinetic theory, and which,
to avoid confusion, should be always designated by the name of
molecules, were not, truth to say, in the eyes of the chemists, the
final term of the divisibility of matter.
Pages:
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150