M. Blondlot has made the experiment. He sent a current
of air into a condenser placed in a magnetic field, and was never able
to notice the slightest trace of electrification. No displacement,
therefore, is effected in the dielectric. The experiment being a
negative one, is evidently less convincing than one giving a positive
result, but it furnishes a very powerful argument in favour of the
theory of Lorentz.
This theory, therefore, appears very seductive, yet it still raises
objections on the part of those who oppose to it the principles of
ordinary mechanics. If we consider, for instance, a radiation emitted
by an electron belonging to one material body, but absorbed by another
electron in another body, we perceive immediately that, the
propagation not being instantaneous, there can be no compensation
between the action and the reaction, which are not simultaneous; and
the principle of Newton thus seems to be attacked. In order to
preserve its integrity, it has to be admitted that the movements in
the two material substances are compensated by that of the ether which
separates these substances; but this conception, although in tolerable
agreement with the hypothesis that the ether and matter are not of
different essence, involves, on a closer examination, suppositions
hardly satisfactory as to the nature of movements in the ether.
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