The electrons themselves do not escape
this contraction, although the observer, since he participates in the
same motion, naturally cannot notice it. Lorentz supposes, besides,
that all forces, whatever their origin, are affected by a translation
in the same way as electromagnetic forces. M. Langevin and M. H.
Poincare have studied this same question and have noted with precision
various delicate consequences of it. The singularity of the hypotheses
which we are thus led to construct in no way constitutes an argument
against the theory of Lorentz; but it has, we must acknowledge,
discouraged some of the more timid partisans of this theory.[48]
[Footnote 48: An objection not here noticed has lately been formulated
with much frankness by Professor Lorentz himself. It is one of the
pillars of his theory that only the negative electrons move when an
electric current passes through a metal, and that the positive
electrons (if any such there be) remain motionless. Yet in the
experiment known as Hall's, the current is deflected by the magnetic
field to one side of the strip in certain metals, and to the opposite
side in others.
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