In all the circumstances, then, in which ions appear, their formation
has doubtless been provoked by a mechanism analogous to that of the
shock. The X rays, if they are attributable to sudden variations in
the ether--that is to say, a variation of the two vectors of Hertz--
themselves produce within the atom a kind of electric impulse which
breaks it into two electrified fragments; _i.e._ the positive centre,
the size of the molecule itself, and the negative centre, constituted
by an electron a thousand times smaller. Round these two centres, at
the ordinary temperature, are agglomerated by attraction other
molecules, and in this manner the ions whose properties have just been
studied are formed.
Sec. 4. ELECTRONS IN METALS
The success of the ionic hypothesis as an interpretation of the
conductivity of electrolytes and gases has suggested the desire to try
if a similar hypothesis can represent the ordinary conductivity of
metals. We are thus led to conceptions which at first sight seem
audacious because they are contrary to our habits of mind.
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