They must
not, however, be rejected on that account. Electrolytic dissociation
at first certainly appeared at least as strange; yet it has ended by
forcing itself upon us, and we could, at the present day, hardly
dispense with the image it presents to us.
The idea that the conductivity of metals is not essentially different
from that of electrolytic liquids or gases, in the sense that the
passage of the current is connected with the transport of small
electrified particles, is already of old date. It was enunciated by W.
Weber, and afterwards developed by Giese, but has only obtained its
true scope through the effect of recent discoveries. It was the
researches of Riecke, later, of Drude, and, above all, those of J.J.
Thomson, which have allowed it to assume an acceptable form. All these
attempts are connected however with the general theory of Lorentz,
which we will examine later.
It will be admitted that metallic atoms can, like the saline molecule
in a solution, partially dissociate themselves. Electrons, very much
smaller than atoms, can move through the structure, considerable to
them, which is constituted by the atom from which they have just been
detached.
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