These negative results are, on the
other hand, so many successes for the partisans of the explanation of
radioactivity by atomic energy.
CHAPTER X
THE ETHER AND MATTER
Sec. 1. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ETHER AND MATTER
For some time past it has been the more or less avowed ambition of
physicists to construct with the particles of ether all possible forms
of corporeal existence; but our knowledge of the inmost nature of
things has hitherto seemed too limited for us to attempt such an
enterprise with any chance of success. The electronic hypothesis,
however, which has furnished a satisfactory image of the most curious
phenomena produced in the bosom of matter, has also led to a more
complete electromagnetic theory of the ether than that of Maxwell, and
this twofold result has given birth to the hope of arriving by means
of this hypothesis at a complete co-ordination of the physical world.
The phenomena whose study may bring us to the very threshold of the
problem, are those in which the connections between matter and the
ether appear clearly and in a relatively simple manner.
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