He added, however, that this research appeared
to him premature, and would change nothing in the results of his work,
since, to accord with facts, the hypothesis adopted would always have
to agree with the formula which exactly represents them.
It is not devoid of interest to observe that Ampere himself,
notwithstanding his caution, really formed some hypotheses, and
recognized that electrical phenomena were governed by the laws of
mechanics. Yet the principles of Newton then appeared to be
unshakable.
Faraday was the first to demonstrate, by clear experiment, the
influence of the media in electricity and magnetic phenomena, and he
attributed this influence to certain modifications in the ether which
these media enclose. His fundamental conception was to reject action
at a distance, and to localize in the ether the energy whose evolution
is the cause of the actions manifested, as, for example, in the
discharge of a condenser.
Consider the barrel of a pump placed in a vacuum and closed by a
piston at each end, and let us introduce between these a certain mass
of air.
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