Voigt, but we may also, like Professor Lorentz,
look for more general theories, in which the essential image of the
electrons shall be preserved, and which will allow all the facts
revealed by experiment to be included.
We are thus led to the supposition that there is not in the atom one
vibrating electron only, but that there is to be found in it a
dynamical system comprising several material points which may be
subjected to varied movements. The neutral atom may therefore be
considered as composed of an immovable principal portion positively
charged, round which move, like satellites round a planet, several
negative electrons of very inferior mass. This conclusion leads us to
an interpretation in agreement with that which other phenomena have
already suggested.
These electrons, which thus have a variable velocity, generate around
themselves a transverse electromagnetic wave which is propagated with
the velocity of light; for the charged particle becomes, as soon as it
experiences a change of speed, the centre of a radiation.
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