The Imaginary Ether.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 24 July 1914, Page 8

The Imaginary Ether.

(By EDGAR LUCIEN LARKIN.)

Absolutely nothing is known of ether. It is not known if ether exists. Professor A. A. Michelson has, after long-continued and excessively refined research, failed to detect its existence. Modern science has measured physical dimensions of the one-seventy-millionth part of an inch, but no ether comes within this limit.

His methods were of interference of waves of light in the interferometer, one of the most delicate and sensitive instruments yet made by human hands ; and also by processes based on the motion of the earth through infinite space.

I have looked with awe and admiration on these early mechanisms, but have not seen the last, those that he used. But I did not go to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to see and hear. The occasion was the meeting of that magnificent body the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in October, 1009. J. J. Thomson, president, and Ernest Rutherford, vice-presi-dent of Section A, made elaborate reports of their researches on the capital discovery since man appeared on earth, namely, of electrons, I listened day after day to an intermina.ble arraj' of absolute facts and the highest of high mathematics.

The result of an entire week of intense study was that a rowl of electrons side by side, one inch long, would contain 12,700,000,000,000, and a cubic inch would contain

if they were all side by side, 20,495 followed by 36 noughts. But one cubic inch actually contains only 14 followed by 18 noughts ! Then space is indeed nearly empty !

There is no longer any use of the word ether.. Electrons scattered in space a.t great distances apart compared to their diameters take the place of this long-time purely imaginary ether. If there exists in space a resisting medium -that increases the speeds of planets, moons and comets, it is matter thousands of times more dense than free electrons. For electrons pass through solids—even solid diamonds. A striking proof that the most rigid matter is not actually continuous, since" no two molecules, atoms, nor electrons touch. These wonderful electrons forever move with inconceivable specific velocities ; their energy is beyond human comprehension. The mass of an atom of hydrogen—the lightest substance known —is 2,000 times greater than that of one electron. Electrons are pure electricity. Xothing is in existence but electrons.