Paracelsus: Philosopher

On the 26th of November, 1493, Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (now known as Paracelsus) was born in the little village of Maria-Einsiedeln near Zurich. His father was a physician, his mother the matron of a hospital, and Theophrastus was their only child. After learning the rudiments of medicine, surgery and alchemy from his father, he entered the University of Basle at the age of sixteen. Then he became the pupil of the celebrated Trithemius and later gained some practical experience in alchemy in the laboratory of Sigismund Fugger.

When Paracelsus was twenty years old he set out on his search for "supreme Wisdom," which took him through every country in Europe and finally led him to Tartary. During those years he made the acquaintance of a great Initiate who instructed him in the secret doctrines of the East. Afterward he went to India, and he may have visited the Mahatmas in Tibet. He returned to Europe in his thirty-second year and became professor of medicine and surgery in the University of Basle, where his fearless condemnation of the medical practices then in vogue aroused the hatred and jealousy of his colleagues. As the result of their persecution Paracelsus resigned his position and again took up a wandering life. Eventually he settled in Salzburg at the invitation of the Prince Palatine, and there he died on the 24th of September, 1541, in his forty-eighth year. The house in which he lived (Linzer Strasse 365, opposite the Church of St. Andrew) may still be seen, and in the graveyard of St. Sebastian will be found a broken pyramid of white marble with a Latin inscription stating that the body of Paracelsus lies beneath. But there is an old tradition that the real Paracelsus did not die at that time, but is still living with other Adepts in a certain spot in Asia, from which place he continues to influence the minds of all who study and promulgate his teachings. A suggestive hint appears in an article published by Mr. Judge in The Path for April, 1887:

Paracelsus was one of the greatest Masters ever known upon the earth. In rank he may be compared with Hermes Thrice-Master. It is considered by some students to be likely that at this period (1887) He who was once known as Paracelsus is in a body whose astral(1) meets with others in Asia.

The enemies of Paracelsus censured him for his nomadic life, which he explained by saying:

"We must seek for knowledge where we may expect to find it. He who wants to study the book of Nature must wander with his feet over the leaves. Every part of the world represents a page in this book, and all the pages together form the Book that contains her great revelations."

...Paracelsus stressed the underlying Unity of Nature as a whole as well as the inter-relationship and interdependence of all its parts.

"Nature, being the Universe, is ONE, and its origin can only be the one eternal Unity. It is an organism in which all things harmonize and sympathize with each other. It is the Macrocosm. Man is the Microcosm. And the Macrocosm and Microcosm are ONE." (Philosophia ad Athenienses.)

This unity of man and Nature makes man the focal point through which the three worlds of Nature -- the physical, astral and spiritual -- manifest themselves. These three "worlds" are made up of a vast quantity of "beings" or "lives." Some of the "lives" are intelligent, others unintelligent, and it is man's duty to understand their nature. The ignorant man may be controlled by the lower lives. But the true philosopher has learned how to control them by the power of the Supreme Creator within himself.

Man's first task, therefore, is to know himself. He must become acquainted with the complexities of his own nature, but, in pursuing this study, he must never for a moment separate himself from Great Nature, of which he is a copy and a part. "Try to understand yourselves in the light of Nature," he advised his students, "and then all wisdom will come to you."

....The second principle, called Prana or Jiva in modern Theosophy, is described by Paracelsus as the Archaeus or Liquor Vitae:

De Generatio Hominis

"The whole of the Microcosm is potentially contained in the Liquor Vitae, in which is contained the nature, quality and essence of beings."

". . . a man must above all be in possession of that faculty which is called Intuition, and which cannot be acquired by blindly following the footsteps of another. He must be able to see his own way. What others may teach you may assist you in your search for knowledge, but you should be able to think for yourself, and not cling to the coat-tail of any authority, no matter how big-sounding the title of the latter may be." (De Modo Pharmacandi.)

....The whole purpose of life, according to Paracelsus, is to realize one's inherent Godhood. There is no God, no saint and no power in which we can place any confidence for the purpose of our salvation, except the power of divine Wisdom within ourselves. Only when man realizes the presence of God within himself will he begin his infinite life, and step from the realm of evanescent illusions into that of permanent truth. This realization can be attained in only one way -- by the abandonment of the personal self.

"Only when the illusion of "self" has disappeared from my heart and mind, and my consciousness arisen to that state in which there will be no "I," then will not I be the doer of works, but the spirit of wisdom will perform its wonders through my instrumentality." (Philosophia Occulta.)
http://www.blavatsky.net/magazine/theosophy/ww/setting/paracelsusone.html

Of Dark Matter, Quintessence, Aether and Ether (Expanded)

What is it like out there in the tremendous void between stars in our Milky Way galaxy? According to a recent article [1], there are about one million atoms (mostly hydrogen) per cubic meter, so it is not completely desolate. But get into the space between galaxies, and there are only 10 atoms/m3. That is a far better vacuum than anything we can achieve on Earth.

But imagine that you are in a space vehicle (an impossible dream because of the huge amount of energy it would take to get there), staring off into space through a porthole window. What will the “sky” look like? It would be lit up with billions of tiny stars. In other words, that cubic meter of lonely, practically empty space, is crisscrossed by a fantastic number of photonic outputs of the universe -- the visible as well as ultraviolet, infrared, and so forth. All of it is electromagnetic radiation.

Recently, cosmologists have been calling our attention to another ingredient in the void between stars in the Milky Way galaxy – Dark Matter. It is not electromagnetic radiation, so we can’t “see” it. It is a mysterious substance – different from ordinary matter. Actually, Dark Matter refers to an effect that fits into the "nothing new under the universe" category, because it was proposed, way back in 1933, by Fritz Zwicky [2]. According to his calculations at that time, which are remarkable in view of the relatively flimsy data upon which they were based, the stars in the galaxies should be flying apart: Given the mass of a typical star and the vast distances to its nearest neighbors, gravitational attraction is insufficient to hold the star in a circular or spiral orbit around the center of the galaxy. Zwicky suggested that "missing matter" was responsible. Eventually, the missing mass came to be called Dark Matter.

In addition to Dark Matter, since 1998, we have Dark Energy. Here is how Linda Rowan and Robert Coontz introduced The Dark Side, Science, 20 June 2003: "Dark stars, the dark age, dark matter, and dark energy are the major components of the dark side of the universe: 96% of the universe consists of mass and energy we can't see and don't really understand. Fortunately, the badly outnumbered 4% of luminous matter feels the dark side through gravity and other forces." In this brief Chapter, Dark Energy is completely avoided; Dark Matter, on the other hand, is something that we can "feel"; it interacts with us via gravitational attraction.

It is no trivial or fly-by-night phenomenon; in fact, cosmologists estimate that the mass of Dark Matter is from five to 10 times that of the luminous material [3]! This is mind-boggling and ego-crushing; it should completely reverse our perspective and be worthy of headlines in the popular as well as scientific press. In other words, the galaxy consists of a huge blob, cloud, or halo of Dark Matter within which are 100 billion relatively insignificant specks -- or stars -- of ordinary matter. The ordinary matter flies along stream lines that are determined by gravitational interaction with the Dark Matter in which it is immersed.

...Although its density is insubstantial, the Dark Matter is spread out over such a huge volume that its total influence is equivalent to that of a gravitationally massive substance. Furthermore, because the Milky Way is not unique, we must assume that each of the 100 billion galaxies in the universe is immersed, similarly, in a cloud of massive Dark Matter.

But the matter, Dark or otherwise, is far from being ended, for Dark Matter is reminiscent of the aether. Once upon a time (1864), James Clerk Maxwell and his contemporaries "invented" the aether, which is approximately analogous to our atmosphere. It filled all of empty space; that is, space that is devoid of mass such as neutrons, protons, and electrons. It was invented because a medium is needed in which an electromagnetic field (EMF) wave can propagate, just as sound cannot travel in a vacuum. Eventually, especially in the United States, the spelling was changed to "ether," which causes minor irritation if one is looking up aether or ether in an index. Major irritation was caused in the 1920s, however, because the "big shots" of physics abandoned the aether. They couldn't measure its motion with respect to the earth, so they declared that it doesn't exist; that electromagnetic fields somehow propagate in a perfect vacuum.

There is no way an EMF can propagate in a vacuum. But in 1887, Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley showed that the aether, if it exists, is traveling with the earth. On the other hand, star aberration data [7] received with telescopes indicate that it is not being dragged along by the earth: Picture a star at the zenith (overhead): When its light exits from the Milky Way’s aether on the way to being captured by the earth’s aether, the light should be bent by an angle of 0.0001 radians (20.5”), which represents the earth’s rotation around the sun (3 X 104 m/s) relative to the velocity of light (3 X 108 m/s). After capture, the star’s light should travel vertically, relative to the earth beneath. This does not happen at all; instead, a telescope has to be tilted at an angle of 20.5” to compensate for the earth’s rotation. The 20.5” is the “aberration of starlight.” If a telescope is pointed directly upward for a year, its star images will appear as tiny circles, 41” in angular diameter.

How can we explain the fact that the earth’s aether is dragged along by the earth, while aberration data indicate that starlight does not encounter the earth’s aether? Here it is my turn to say “Somehow, by relativistic effects which are described below, and by the curvature of space.”

Let’s consider another aspect of the earth dragging its aether along. Since the earth travels around the sun at a speed 0.01% as fast as the velocity of light, there must be a transition zone, in front of the earth, where the aether is compressed as one goes from the earth's aether to that of the sun. Similarly, behind the earth, there must be a transition zone of expansion.

...If we send out a spaceship to measure the velocity of light in the “compression” or “expansion” zones, it will always measure 300 million m/s. Over 100 years ago, it was known that the velocity of light is always 300 million m/s, independent of whether the source is moving towards us or away from us, provided the measurement is made at an inertial (not accelerating) platform. (There is a radial acceleration of the earth around the sun, and of an object around the center of the earth, but these effects are relatively small.) The correct scenario is depicted in Fig. 2(b), where the uniform spacing signifies constant measured velocity of light. In 1905, Albert Einstein explained this with his theory of special relativity: space and time are not the same to all observers; and space can curve.

....In Model 1, a photon is analogous to a minuscule projectile. It carries a certain amount of energy (for a “green” photon, 3.4 X 10-19 joule). This blob of energy leaves its source and flies through space, sometimes for billions of years, at the speed of light, until it encounters a material object. Then it deposits 3.4 X 10-19 joule of energy (usually in the form of heat). What happens if two of these photon “projectiles” hit each other? Nothing much. They act as if they have zero diameter, so they pass “through” each other unscathed. But projectiles with zero diameter don’t make much sense. Also, how does it turn out that the speed of a projectile, regardless of its launching platform or frequency, is 300 million m/s?

In Model 2, a photon is analogous to a wave on the surface of a lake: The ripple is transmitted from one molecule of water to the next. All of us have experienced the energy carried by a water wave. But how is the ripple of a photon transmitted from one “molecule” of vacuum to the next? The answer, it seems to me, is that the “vacuum” is actually filled with that mysterious “substance” called the aether. Furthermore, if a photon is a ripple in the aether, we expect its velocity to be independent of the source or frequency, just as the speed of a sound wave is independent of the loudspeaker or the audio frequency.

...More recently, however, the vacuum has been dignified with additional properties: subatomic particles randomly appear and disappear. It is therefore confusing to call empty space a "vacuum" while so much is going on. But our physicists and cosmologists came to the rescue, in 1998, with a fashionable new word – quintessence [15]. (Actually, it is only a new application, because it appears in old dictionaries.) Now, empty space is permeated with quintessence (Dark Energy). So, since the aether was rejected, and the "vacuum" is misleading, let's all jump on the "quintessence" bandwagon. Well, not so fast: The latest descriptions of DarkMatter reveal that it is a "dark horse"; it could be the aether, after all!"

by Sid Deutsch
http://www.siddeutsch.org/essay19.html

Science: To Be, or Not to Be - Or, How I Discovered the Swindle of Special Relativity

If we wish to assure the survival of science into the new century, we must begin by clearing up the mess we have made of it over the last. Let’s start with the swindle called The Special Theory of Relativity. Here we have a roof of wastepaper shingles, set upon the house of fraud that Maxwell built. Einstein’s alleged great achievement, that “triumph of 20th century physics,” was that he saved the appearances of the (then well-known) fraud which the great British faker, James Clerk Maxwell, had constructed over the dead bodies of Ampère, Gauss, Riemann, and, finally, Weber.

This is the story of how I came to recognize the swindle Einstein perpetrated. Like most great liars, Einstein tells you what he is doing, albeit in a devious fashion. Like most discoveries, mine came about through an indirect path. Yet, each step is important in its own way. Bear with me, and you too shall see, if you dare.

First Steps

About two months ago, I read in a column by Jeffery Kooistra in Infinite Energy magazine (Issue 27, 1999) of a simple and paradoxical experiment, originally proposed by Dr. Peter Graneau, the author of Ampère-Neumann Electrodynamics in Metals and other works. The result so fascinated me that I decided to reproduce the experiment on my own. Two 42-inch lengths of half-inch (i.d.) copper pipe were mounted, each on a separate length of 1 x 3 lumber, and laid parallel to one another, like rails, about 12 inches apart. The opposite terminals of a 12-volt automotive battery were connected to the copper rails.

When the circuit is completed, by placing a 24-inch length of copper pipe perpendicularly across the two parallel pipes, the shorter pipe begins to roll down the track, accelerating to the end, and sparking and sputtering as it goes in a delightful display.

One familiar with the Ampère angular force (see 21st Century, Fall 1996, “The Atomic Science Textbooks Don’t Teach,” p. 21), will see that an explanation based on repulsion between elements of current in the parallel rods, and those in the movable, perpendicular portion of the circuit, is at hand—although, the same motion can be accounted for by the algebraically equivalent i x B forces considered in Maxwell’s formulations.

The paradox which the designer of the experiment wished to demonstrate comes in the next part. If we replace the 24-inch copper pipe with an equivalent length of steel pipe, the steel pipe rolls in the opposite direction! Why? I asked Dr. Graneau, who was kind enough to provoke my added interest by telling me that he didn’t know, and that he didn’t know of anybody who did.

Ampère’s Theory of Magnetism

It seemed to me, first of all, that the steel pipe must be experiencing a magnetization under the influence of the current. If so, the question, as I saw it, remained of what was the influence of the other parts of the circuit on the presumed magnet. I recalled that Ampère devoted the largest portion of his famous 1826 Memoire to developing a theory of magnetism, attempting to subsume the entirety of magnetic effects known to him under his law for the force between current elements.

To accomplish this, he made use of the beautiful concept (suggested to him by his close friend, Augustin Fresnel) of the “magnetic molecule.” By this he meant a small, resistance-free, circular current, which he believed to be present in the atomic structure of all things. In the case of ferromagnetic materials, Ampère supposed these molecules to be aligned in parallel columns, compounding their force to produce the total magnetic effect.

In the Memoire, Ampère shows that a magnetic solenoid would produce a rotational moment on a current element, or portion of a circuit, located outside; but that in the case of a complete circuit, there would be no moment. I wondered if, in the case of the backward-moving steel pipe, the other parts of the circuit formed by the copper rails might not act separately from the portion of the circuit passing through the steel pipe. Another experiment, prepared for a classroom demonstration on these topics, had suggested such a possibility.

In the latter case, I wished to show that a magnetized, hollow steel cylinder acted differently than did a classical Ampère solenoid (which had been made by winding a wire around a hollow plastic tube of the same dimensions as the steel cylinder). I had had difficulty achieving any significant magnetization of the steel cylinder, which was made from a section of tubing used for carrying electrical conduit—what electricians call EMT. However, shortly before the classroom demonstration was to take place, I noticed that if the steel tube was wound with wire like the plastic one, and a current run through it, the difference in the form of the magnetization could be demonstrated. To wit, an iron nail or other magnetizable object is drawn into the center of the Ampère solenoid, but only to the outside ends in the case of the steel cylinder.1

At the time, I concluded, without giving it much thought, that the magnetization produced in the steel cylinder when the current was flowing was simply the predominant effect, making the contrivance behave (when the current was on) more like a permanently magnetized piece of steel than an Ampère solenoid.

After reading a part of the Ampère Memoire, I saw the possibility that this same sort of effect might be at work in the case of the backward-rolling steel pipe. It might be possible to convert the case Ampère describes, of a rotational moment created by a solenoid on part of a circuit, to the case in hand. The calculation is, however, difficult, and the experiments necessary to verify it even more so. I have not had the opportunity, yet, to pursue it.

Maxwell’s Fraud Summarized

Had anyone else done so? Unfortunately, the Ampère Memoire is almost never read today; only a small portion of the 200-page work was ever translated into English, and even French speakers rarely, if ever, trouble to work through it. The reason is that James Clerk Maxwell, in the middle of the 19th century, made a new mathematical formulation of the laws of electricity, which he claimed was algebraically equivalent to that of Ampère and Ampère’s successor in the development of the electrical laws, Wilhelm Weber.

Not only did Maxwell make this formulation, but, one must add in all honesty, British political-military hegemony at the time imposed the new view on many reluctant, sometimes even obstinately so, opponents on all continents.

Maxwell’s formulation, however, eliminated consideration of the angular component of the force between current elements. It also removed the most fundamental of Ampère’s assumptions—the unity of electricity and magnetism—by introducing the concept of a magnetic field. There is no magnetic field in any of the writings of Ampère, nor of his successors in electrodynamics, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Wilhelm Weber, and Bernhard Riemann. Magnetism, for them, is considered an epiphenomenon of electricity; it is the force of electrodynamic attraction or repulsion acting between circuits of electricity, called magnetic molecules (and which came to be known later as electrons).

This forgotten part of the history of the subject is most important to what we are about to show.

The First Unipolar Machines

But to return to the thread of our story, I soon became aware of some closely related developments. In 1840, Wilhelm Weber, who then shared with Gauss the leadership of the worldwide association for the study of the Earth’s magnetic forces known as the Magnetische Verein, published in the journal of that society a paper titled “Unipolar Induction.” In it, he described his study of a phenomenon first discovered by Ampère.

Begin with a cylindrical steel rod, magnetized along its axis. If the lead wires from a battery are brought into contact with the magnet such that the magnet is not constrained in its motion (as by brushes), one brush touching it at the top of its central axis, and the other along the circumference of the cylinder and roughly midway between the two poles, the magnet will rotate around its own axis for as long as the current continues to flow. Ampère created such an electric motor, which Faraday had deemed impossible, in 1822.

Unipolar induction, a term apparently due to Weber, by which he seems to mean induction of an electrical current in one direction only (pure direct current in our modern terms), refers to the converse situation. The magnet is rotated, as by a crank, generating an electric current in the lead wires. Weber had some difficulty accounting for the phenomenon, until he modified what he thought was Ampère’s conception of the magnetic molecule to suppose that two separate magnetic fluids (north and south) were contained within the magnetic molecule, and that the portion of the current flowing through the magnet followed a path midway between them.

After Weber, many more studies were made of the unipolar induction. In the 1870s, E. Edlund in Sweden showed that the magnet could be kept stationary, and, instead, a steel cylinder which surrounds it, but which need not be in physical contact with it, could be rotated, producing the same effects. The American physicist E.H. Hall mentions the researches of Edlund as having contributed in some important way to his 1879 discovery of the transverse current phenomenon, now known as the Hall Effect.2

In another form of the unipolar induction, a rotatable steel disk is situated between two steel plates bearing opposite magnetic poles. Brushes with lead wires running from them are brought into contact with the disk at a point near its center, and at a point, or points, along the circumference. Upon rotation of the disk, a significant current is generated in the wires. Description of this form of the apparatus, called a unipolar or homopolar generator, can be found in older textbooks on electrical principles.

In one book, I learned that such machines were being produced commercially by the General Electric and Westinghouse Companies in the 1920s. Such devices can produce very high, pure direct currents, without the need for rectifiers or commutators, but have the disadvantage of producing only low voltages.

Forbidden Words

Readers familiar with the ways of physicists may know, however, that raising the topic of unipolar generators and motors among them is most likely to produce grimaces, embarrassed smiles, or other looks of dismay. The reason for this only became clear to me a short time ago. Up to that time, I had naively thought that there was some doubt as to the actual existence of the effect, so negative is the reaction to the mere mention of the words.

Now I understand, what many already knew, that it is part of the codified religion of the self-anointed priesthood known as academically accredited 20th-century physicists, that such a topic is not to be discussed. The reason is, that Einstein said so.

I began to suspect so just recently, when, a friend, after seeing a demonstration of the backward-rolling steel pipe, opened up a 1950s textbook on electrodynamics to the section on “homopolar generators.” In it, the author described a generator of the rotating disk type just described above. The author went on to say that if the disk is kept stationary and, instead, the magnetic plates surrounding it are rotated, no current is generated!

Students often have difficulty grasping why this should be so, the author tells us. But, he explains to them that they must understand that when the magnets are rotated, the magnetic field lines do not rotate with them!3 Further, the textbook author suggests, one must consider the inertial framework of the observer and the apparatus. Finally, he tells us, that when students still don’t yield, he clears things up by presenting them with another case. He then describes a more complicated experiment involving the relative motion of magnet, steel bar, and ammeter, in which eight different outcomes are possible. And there the chapter ends. Surely, then, everything is clear.

Enter Einstein

I am in some ways naive, but one does not live a large portion of one’s life in New York City without developing a certain instinct for knowing when he is being swindled. A look into yet another but older textbook (under what perverse impulsion I know not), brought me nearer to the truth. For here, on page 8, just upon entering the topic of electrostatics, we are told that, before going any further, we must become familiar with the concept of inertial frames. (That was 1930, when everybody was not so familiar with this idea.) For situations arise in which an observer in one inertial frame will measure an electric field and no magnetic field, while another might measure both an electric and a magnetic field, for example. If we do not take into account inertial frames, we are warned, many problems in electrodynamics, especially those involving rotating magnets will create difficulties for us.

Just at that point I began to suspect the exact nature of the swindle. Was it possible, that—despite all the talk of moving trains, clocks, and shrinking rods—the anomaly being addressed in Special Relativity was actually the much more mundane case before me—the asymmetry between motion of the magnet and motion of the disk? Then I remembered the title of Einstein’s famous paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” Suddenly, its first paragraph made sense:

“It is known that Maxwell’s electrodynamics—as usually understood at the present time—when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena. Take, for example, the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor. . . .”

Was Einstein talking about anything other than the anomaly of the sort manifested in the unipolar generator? If there were any doubt, one needed only to turn to “II. Electrodynamical Part, Section 6. Transformation of the Maxwell-Hertz Equations for Empty Space. On the Nature of the Electromotive Forces Occurring in a Magnetic Field During Motion.” There, in the last paragraph we read:

“Furthermore it is clear that the asymmetry mentioned in the introduction as arising when we consider the currents produced by the relative motion of a magnet and a conductor, now disappears. Moreover, questions as to the ‘seat’ of electrodynamic electromotive forces (unipolar machines) now have no point.”

And so, a true physical anomaly has been caused to disappear by the introduction of an arbitrary postulate—and an absurd one, at that. Thus are Maxwell’s equations “saved.” Could a magician do better?

There, dear reader, is the fraud—or a big part of it—which today’s well-paid fraternity of professional physicists are committed to defend.4 Heed and respect these hoaxsters if you wish. You will pay, like Faust, with your soul. Science, like all creative practice, is a precious tradition of thought, which begins with a profound and religious love for one’s fellow man, and most of all, for those among one’s predecessors who have ventured into that fearful territory “from whose bourn no traveller returns”: the realm of independent, creative thought. Nothing will so quickly turn a gifted thinker into a hopeless sack of lost potential, as moral compromise.

There is the challenge for science, as we enter the new millennium.

—Laurence Hecht

NOTES

1. This was the subject of an early challenge by Michael Faraday to Ampère’s hypothesis of the magnetic molecule. Faraday reasoned that if Ampère’s conception were correct, the two cylinders should show the same magnetic effect; but his experiments showed that they behaved differently. Ampère showed that Faraday did not understand the conception: the large circular windings of the solenoid are only macroscopic analogues of the very small circular currents hypothesized to reside within the atomic structure of the magnet. Thus, the geometry of the currents in the two cylinders is entirely different, and Faraday’s experimental conception is fundamentally flawed.

2. It might, or might not, be relevant to the case at hand that, shortly after his discovery of the transverse current, which was accomplished in a thin layer of gold deposited on a glass plate, Hall discovered that iron produces a transverse current in the opposite direction.

3. Professor O’Rahilly, author of Electromagnetics (1938) calls this argument, which had already been employed in his day, “hypostasizing one’s own metaphor.” Today, we might use blunter language.

4. Let us allow each man the benefit of the doubt. Some among this fraternity have been so credulous, in their pursuit of fame or money, as to be truly ignorant of the fraud they are paid to uphold. Today, even educated physicists usually lack the historical background to understand how troubling was the challenge posed to Maxwell’s system by such asymmetries. Maxwell’s nasty fraud—the usurpation of half a century’s hard work, steered by the greatest mathematical physicist of modern times, Carl Friedrich Gauss—was in trouble. And people were alive who knew, and still resented, the arbitrary and entirely political manner in which the Ampère-Gauss-Weber electrodynamics was unseated.
Maxwell, who did no more than create a mathematical system which successfully misrepresented all the hard work of Ampère, Gauss, Weber, Riemann and others, had made a big blunder, or several. The Ampère-Gauss-Weber electrodynamics was relativistic, in a non-silly sense; it was atomistic; Gauss knew that the propagation of electrodynamic force was not instantaneous (Weber, Kohlrausch, and Riemann had measured it in 1854, years before Maxwell ever proposed the electromagnetic theory), and was seeking since no later than 1835, a “constructible representation” for it, as Gauss put it in an 1845 letter.
So Einstein “saved the appearances” of Maxwell’s flawed electrodynamics. He should be called the modern Ptolemy. Maxwell is the true “Newton” of modern times. Just as one of scientific history’s most over-inflated impostors, Isaac Newton, reformulated Kepler’s work into an inferior formal system, so Maxwell did the same for the work of Ampère, Gauss, Weber, and Riemann.
Perhaps the defenders of Maxwell’s system prefer to remain in ignorance for the simple reason that the patent untenability of their position becomes only more clear, the more they know of its true history. For example, let one of the anointed priests of this profession respond today, to the devastating blow to their entire straw edifice which Ampère had struck in an 1822 letter to Faraday. Explaining that a perpetual motion was impossible, Ampère showed that the force between current elements which could be turned into a continuous rotational motion, had to come from the work done within the battery. However, such was not the case if one presumed—as did Biot, Laplace, and later Maxwell—that the force between magnet and magnet could be made equivalent to that between current element and current element. For in that case, continuous rotational motion would be possible between two magnets, a conclusion which violates the principle of energy conservation:
“. . . dans les autres théories, on devrait pouvoir imiter, avec des assemblages d’aimants disposé convenablement, tous les phenomènes que présentent les fils conducteurs; on pourrait donc, en faisant agir un de ces assemblages sur an autre, produire dans celui-ci le mouvement continu toujours dans le méme sens; ce que dément l’expérience” (cited in Blondel, op cit., p. 117).
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/edit.html

On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Currents

From the American Journal of Mathematics

Volume II, 1879

Communications and subscriptions to the Journal (price $5.00 a volume) may be addressed to William E. Story, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Currents.

By E. H. Hall, Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University.

Sometime during the last University year, while I was reading Maxwell's Electricity and Magnetism in connection with Professor Rowland's lectures, my attention was particularly attracted by the following passage in Vol. II, p. 144:

"It must be carefully remembered, that the mechanical force which urges a conductor carrying a current across the lines of magnetic force, acts, not on the electric current, but on the conductor which carries it. If the conductor be a rotating disk or a fluid it will move in obedience to this force, and this motion may or may not be accompanied with a change of position of the electric current which it carries. But if the current itself be free to choose any path through a fixed solid conductor or a network of wires, then, when a constant magnetic force is made to act on the system, the path of the current through the conductors is not permanently altered but after certain transient phenomena, called induction currents, have subsided, the distribution of the current will be found to be the same as if no magnetic force were in action. The only force which acts on electric currents is electromotive force, which must be distinguished from the mechanical force which is the subject of this chapter."

This statement seemed to me to be contrary to the most natural supposition in the case considered, taking into account the fact that a wire not bearing a current is in general not affected by a magnet and that a wire bearing a current is affected exactly in proportion to the strength of the current, while the size and, in general, the material of the wire are matters of indifference. Moreover in explaining the phenomena of statical electricity it is customary to say that charged bodies are attracted toward each other or the contrary solely by the attraction or repulsion of the charges for each other.

Soon after reading the above statement in Maxwell I read an article by Prof. Edlund, entitled "Unipolar Induction" (Phil. Mag., Oct., 1878, or Annales de Chemie et de Physique, Jan., 1879), in which the author evidently assumes that a magnet acts upon a current in a fixed conductor just as it acts upon the conductor itself when free to move.

Finding these two authorities at variance, I brought the question to Prof. Rowland. He told me he doubted the truth of Maxwell's statement and had sometime before made a hasty experiment for the purpose of detecting, if possible, some action of the magnet on the current itself, though without success. Being very busy with other matters however, he had no immediate intention of carrying the investigation further.

I now began to give the matter more attention and hit upon a method that seemed to promise a solution of the problem. I laid my plan before Prof. Rowland and asked whether he had any objection to my making the experiment. He approved of my method in the main, though suggesting some very important changes in the proposed form and arrangement of the apparatus, the experiment proposed was suggested by the following reflection:

If the current of electricity in a fixed conductor is itself is attracted by a magnet, the current should be drawn to one side of the wire, and therefore the resistance experienced should be increased.

To test this theory, a flat spiral of German silver wire was enclosed between two thin disks of hard rubber and the whole placed between the poles of an electromagnet in such a position that the lines of magnetic force would pass through the spiral at right angles to the current of electricity.

The wire of the spiral was about 1/2 mm. in diameter, and the resistance of the spiral was about two ohms.

The magnet was worked by a battery of twenty Bunsen cells joined four in series and five abreast. The strength of the magnetic field in which the coil was placed was probably fifteen or twenty thousand times H, the horizontal intensity of the earth's magnetism.

Making the spiral one arm of a Wheatstone's bridge and using a low resistance Thomson galvanometer, so delicately adjusted as to betray a change of about one part in a million in the resistance of the spiral, I made, from October 7th to October 11th inclusive, thirteen series of observations, each of forty readings. A reading would first be made with the magnet active in a certain direction, then a reading with the magnet inactive, then one with the magnet active in the direction opposite to the first, then with the magnet inactive, and so on till the series of forty readings was completed.

Some of the series seemed to show a slight increase of resistance due to the action of the magnet, some a slight decrease, the greatest change indicated by any complete series being a decrease of about one part in a hundred and fifty thousand. Nearly all the other series indicated a very much smaller change, the average change shown by the thirteen series being a decrease of about one part in five millions.

Apparently, then, the magnet's action caused no change in the resistance of the coil.

But though conclusive, apparently, in respect to any change of resistance, the above experiments are not sufficient to prove that it magnet cannot affect an electric current. If electricity is assumed to be an incompressible fluid, as some suspect it to be, we may conceive that the current of electricity flowing in a wire cannot be forced into one side of the wire or made to flow in any but a symmetrical manner. The magnet may tend to deflect the current without being able to do so. It is evident, however, that in this case there would exist a state of stress in the conductor, the electricity pressing, as it were, toward one side of the wire. Reasoning thus, I thought it necessary, in order to make a thorough investigation of the matter, to test for a difference of potential between points on opposite sides of the conductor.

This could be done by repeating the experiment formerly made by Prof. Rowland, and which was the following:

A disk or strip of metal, forming part of an electric circuit, was placed between the poles of an electro-magnet, the disk cutting across the lines of force. The two poles of a sensitive galvanometer were then placed in connection with different parts of the disk, through which an electric current was passing, until two nearly equipotential points were found. The magnet current was then turned on and the galvanometer was observed, in order to detect any indication of a change in the relative potential of the two poles.

Owing probably to the fact that the metal disk used had considerable thickness, the experiment at that time failed to give any positive result. Prof. Rowland now advised me, in repeating this experiment, to use gold leaf mounted on a plate of glass as my metal strip. I did so, and, experimenting as indicated above, succeeded on the 28th of October in obtaining, as the effect of the magnet's action, a decided defection of the galvanometer needle.

This deflection was much too large to be attributed to the direct action of the magnet on the galvanometer needle, or to any similar cause. It was, moreover, a permanent deflection, and therefore not to be accounted for by induction.

The effect was reversed when the magnet was reversed. It was not reversed by transferring the poles of the galvanometer from one end of the strip to the other. In short, the phenomena observed were just such as we should expect to see if the electric current were pressed, but not moved, toward one side of the conductor.

In regard to the direction of this pressure or tendency as dependent on the direction of the current in the gold leaf and the direction of the lines of magnetic force, the following statement may be made:

If we regard an electric current as a single stream flowing from the positive to the negative pole, i.e. From the carbon pole of the battery through the circuit to the zinc pole, in this case the phenomena observed indicate that two currents, parallel and in the same direction, tend to repel each other.

If, on the other hand, we regard the electric current, as a stream flowing from the negative to the positive pole, in this case the phenomena observed indicate that two currents parallel and in the same direction tend to attract each other.

It is of course perfectly well known that two conductors, bearing currents parallel and in the same direction, are drawn toward each other. Whether this fact, taken in connection with what has been said above, has any bearing upon the question of the absolute direction of the electric current, it is perhaps too early to decide.

In order to make some rough quantitative experiments, a new plate was prepared consisting of a strip of gold leaf about 2 cm. wide and 9 cm. long mounted on plate glass. Good contact was insured by pressing firmly down on each end of the strip of gold leaf a thick piece of brass polished on the under side. To these pieces of brass the wires from a single Bunsen cell were soldered. The portion of the gold leaf strip not covered by the pieces of brass was about 5 1/2 cm. In length and had a resistance of about 2 ohms. The poles of a high resistance Thomson galvanometer were placed in connection with points opposite each other on the edges of the strip of gold leaf and midway between the pieces of brass. The glass plate bearing the gold leaf was fastened, as the first one had been, by a soft cement to the flat end of one pole of the magnet, the other pole of the magnet being brought to within about 6 mm. of the strip of gold leaf.

The apparatus being arranged as above described, on the 12th of November a series of observations was made for the purpose of determining the variations of the observed effect with known variations of the magnetic force and the strength of current through the gold leaf.

The experiments were hastily and roughly made, but are sufficiently accurate, it is thought, to determine the law of variation above mentioned as well as the order of magnitude of the current through the Thomson galvanometer compared with the current through the gold leaf and the intensity of the magnetic field.

The results obtained are as follows:

Current through Gold Leaf Strip.

C.

.0616

.0249

.0389

.0598

.0595

Strength of Magnetic Field.

M.

1l420 H

11240 H

11060 H

7670 H

5700 H

Current through Thomson Galvanometer.

c.

.00000000232

.00000000085

.00000000135

.00000000147

.00000000104

C times M/c

303000000000.

329000000000.

319000000000.

312000000000.

326000000000.

H is the horizontal intensity of the earth's magnetism =.19 approximately.

Though the greatest difference in the last column above amounts to about 8 per cent. of the mean quotient, yet it seems safe to conclude that with s given form and arrangement of apparatus the action on the Thomson galvanometer is proportional to the product of the magnetic force by the current through the gold leaf. This is not the same as saying that the effect on the Thomson galvanometer is under all circumstances proportional to the current which is passing between the poles of the magnet. If a strip of copper of the same length and breadth as the gold leaf but 1/4 mm. in thickness is substituted for the latter, the galvanometer fails to detect any current arising from the action of the magnet, except an induction current at the moment of making or breaking the magnet circuit.

It has been stated above that in the experiments thus far tried the current apparently tends to move, without actually moving, toward the side of the conductor. I have in mind a form of apparatus which will, I think, allow the current to follow this tendency and move across the lines of magnetic force. If this experiment succeeds, one or two others immediately suggest themselves.

To make a more complete and accurate study of the phenomenon described in the preceding pages, availing myself of the advice and assistance of Prof. Rowland, will probably occupy me for some months to come.

Baltimore, Nov. 19th,1879.

It is perhaps allowable to speak of the action of the magnet as setting up in the strip of gold leaf a new electromotive force at right angles to the primary electromotive force.

This new electromotive force cannot, under ordinary conditions, manifest itself, the circuit in which it might work being incomplete. When the circuit, is completed by means of the Thomson galvanometer, a current flows.

The actual current through this galvanometer depends of course upon the resistance of the galvanometer and its connections, as well as upon the distance between the two points of the gold leaf at which the ends of the wires from the galvanometer are applied. We cannot therefore take the ratio of C and c above as the ratio of the primary and the transverse electromotive forces just mentioned.

If we represent by E' the difference of potential of two points a centimeter apart on the transverse diameter of the strip of gold leaf and by E the difference of potential of two points a centimeter apart on the longitudinal diameter of the same, a rough and hasty calculation for the experiments already made shows the ratio E/ E' to have varied from about 3000 to about 6500.

The transverse electromotive force E' seems to be, under ordinary circumstances, proportional to Mv, where M is the intensity of the magnetic field and v is the velocity of the electricity in the gold leaf. Writing for v the equivalent expression C/8 where C is the primary current through a strip of the gold leaf 1 cm. wide, and s is the area of section of the same, we have E' MC/8

November 22nd,1879.
http://www.scu.edu.tw/physics/science-human/classics/original-Hall.htm

Engels' Dialectics of Nature - Electricity

Yet up to now we hardly know of any other source for the excitation of electricity on metallic contact. According to Naumann (Allg. u. phys. Chemie [General and Physical Chemistry], Heidelberg, 1877, p. 675), "the contact-electromotive forces convert heat into electricity"; he finds "the assumption natural that the ability of these forces to produce electric motion depends on the quantity of heat present, or, in other words, that it is a function of the temperature," as has also been proved experimentally by Le Roux. Here too we find ourselves groping in the dark. The law of the voltaic series of metals forbids us to have recourse to the chemical processes that to a small extent are continually taking place at the contact surfaces, which are always covered by a thin layer of air and impure water, a layer as good as inseparable as far as we are concerned. An electrolyte should produce a constant current in the circuit, but the electricity of mere metallic contact, on the contrary, disappears on closing the circuit. And here we come to the real point: whether, and in what manner, the production of a constant current on the contact of chemically indifferent bodies is made possible by this "electric force of separation," which Wiedemann himself first of all restricted to metals, declaring it incapable of functioning without energy being supplied from outside, and then referred exclusively to a truly microscopical source of energy.

The voltaic series arranges the metals in such a sequence that each one behaves as electro-negative in relation to the preceding one and as electro-positive in relation to the one that follows it. Hence if we arrange a series of pieces of metal in this order, e.g. zinc, tin, iron, copper, platinum, we shall be able to obtain differences of electric potential at the two ends. If, however, we arrange the series of metals to form a circuit so that the zinc and platinum are in contact, the electric stress is at once neutralised and disappears. "Therefore the production of a constant current of electricity is not possible in a closed circuit of bodies belonging to the voltaic series." Wiedemann further supports this statement by the following theoretical consideration:

"In fact, if a constant electric current were to make its appearance in the circuit, it would produce heat in the metallic conductors themselves, and this heating could at the most be counterbalanced by cooling at the metallic junctions. In any case it would give rise to an uneven distribution of heat; moreover an electro-magnetic motor could be driven continuously by the current without any sort of supply from outside, and thus work would be performed, which is impossible, since on firmly joining the metals, for instance by soldering, no further changes to compensate for this work could take place even at the contact surfaces."

...For the time being, therefore, we put on record that Wiedemann's second explanation of the current gives us just as little assistance as his first one, and let us proceed further with the text:

"This process proves that the behaviour of the binary substance between the metals does not consist merely in a simple predominant attraction of its entire mass for one electricity or the other, as in the case of metals, but that in addition a special action of its constituents is exhibited. Since the constituent Cl is given off where the current of positive electricity enters the fluid, and the constituent H where the negative electricity enters, we assume that each equivalent of chlorine in the compound HCl is charged with a definite amount of negative electricity determining its attraction by the entering positive electricity. It is the electro-negative constituent of the compound. Similarly the equivalent H must be charged with positive electricity and so represent the electro-positive constituent of the compound. These charges could be produced on the combination of H and Cl in just the same way as on the contact of zinc and copper. Since the compound HCl as such is non-electric, we must assume accordingly that in it the atoms of the positive and negative constituents contain equal quantities of positive and negative electricity.

If now a zinc plate and a copper plate are dipped in dilute hydrochloric acid, we can suppose that the zinc has a stronger attraction towards the electro-negative constituent (Cl) than towards the electropositive one (H). Consequently, the molecules of hydrochloric acid in contact with the zinc would dispose themselves so that their electro- negative constituents are turned towards the zinc, and their electro-positive constituents towards the copper. Owing to the constituents when so arranged exerting their electrical attraction on the constituents of the next molecules of HCl, the whole series of molecules between the zinc and copper plates becomes arranged as in Fig. 10:



- Zinc Copper +
- + - + - + - + - +
Cl H Cl H Cl H Cl H Cl H



If the second metal acts on the positive hydrogen as the zinc does on the negative chlorine, it would help to promote the arrangement. If it acted in the opposite manner, only more weakly, at least the direction would remain unaltered.

By the influence exerted by the negative electricity of the electro-negative constituent Cl adjacent to the zinc, the electricity would be so distributed in the zinc that places on it which are close to the Cl of the immediately adjacent atom of acid would become charged positively, those farther away negatively.

Similarly, negative electricity would accumulate in the .copper next to the electro-positive constituent (H) of the adjacent atom of hydrochloric acid, and the positive electricity would be driven to the more remote parts.

Next, the positive electricity in the zinc would combine with the negative electricity of the immediately adjacent atom of Cl, and the latter itself with the zinc, to form non-electric ZnCl2. The electro-positive atom H, which was previously combined with this atom of Cl, would unite with the atom of Cl turned towards it belonging to the second atom of HCl, with simultaneous combination of the electricities contained in these atoms; similarly, the H of the second atom of HCl would combine with the Cl of the third atom, and so on, until finally an atom of H would be set free on the copper, the positive electricity of which would unite with the distributed negative electricity of the copper, so that it escapes in a non-electrified condition." This process would "repeat itself until the repulsive action of the electricities accumulated in the metal plates on the electricities of the hydrochloric acid constituents turned towards them balances the chemical attraction of the latter by the metals. If, however, the metal plates are joined by a conductor, the free electricities of the metal plates unite with one another and the above-mentioned processes can recommence. In this way a constant current of electricity comes into being. - It is evident that in the course of it a continual loss of vis viva occurs, owing to the constituents of the binary compound on their migration to the metals moving to the latter with a definite velocity and then coming to rest, either with formation of a compound (ZnCl2) or by escaping in the free state (H). (Note [by Wiedemann]: Since the gain in vis viva on separation of the constituents Cl and H ... is compensated by the vis viva lost on the union of these constituents with the constituents of the adjacent atoms, the influence of this process can be neglected.) This loss of vis viva is equivalent to the quantity of heat which is set free in the visibly occurring chemical process, essentially, therefore, that produced on the solution of an equivalent of zinc in the dilute acid. This value must be the same as that of the work expended on separating the electricities. If, therefore, the electricities unite to form a current, then, during the solution of an equivalent of zinc and the giving off of an equivalent of hydrogen from the liquid, there must make its appearance in the whole circuit, whether in the form of heat or in the form of external performance of work, an amount of work that is likewise equivalent to the development of heat corresponding to this chemical process."

"Let us assume - could - we must assume - we can suppose - would be distributed - would become charged," etc., etc. Sheer conjecture and subjunctives from which only three actual indicatives can be definitely extracted: firstly, that the combination of the zinc with the chlorine is now pronounced to be the condition for the liberation of hydrogen; secondly, as we now learn right at the end and as it were incidentally, that the energy herewith liberated is the source, and indeed the exclusive source, of all energy required for formation of the current; and thirdly, that this explanation of the current formation is as directly in contradiction to both those previously given as the latter are themselves mutually contradictory.

Further it is said:

"For the formation of a constant current, therefore, there is active wholly and solely the electric force of separation which is derived from the unequal attraction and polarisation of the atoms of the binary compound in the exciting liquid of the battery by the metal electrodes; at the place of contact of the metals, at which no further mechanical changes can occur, the electric force of separation must on the other hand be inactive. That this force, if by chance it counteracts the electromotive excitation of the metals by the liquid (as on immersion of zinc and lead in potassium cyanide solution), is not compensated by a definite share of the force of separation at the place of contact, is proved by the above-mentioned complete proportionality of the total electric force of separation (and electromotive force) in the circuit, with the abovementioned heat equivalent of the chemical process. Hence it must be neutralised in another way. This would most simply occur on the assumption that on contact of the exciting liquid with the metals the electromotive force is produced in a double manner; on the one hand by an unequally strong attraction of the mass of the liquid as a whole towards one or the other electricity, on the other hand by the unequal attraction of the metals towards the constituents of the liquid charged with opposite electricities. ... Owing to the former unequal (mass) attraction towards the electricities, the liquids would fully conform to the law of the voltaic series of metals, and in a closed circuit ... complete neutralisation to zero of the electric forces of separation (and electromotive forces) take place; the second (chemical) action ... on the other hand would be provided solely by the electric force of separation necessary for formation of the current and the corresponding electromotive force." (I, pp. 52-3.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch06.htm

Gods, Monads, and Atoms

Science is, undeniably, ultra-materialistic in our days; but it finds, in one sense, its justification. Nature behaving in actu ever esoterically, and being, as the Kabalists say, in abscondito, can only be judged by the profane through her appearance, and that appearance is always deceitful on the physical plane. On the other hand, the naturalists refuse to blend physics with metaphysics, the body with its informing soul and spirit, which they prefer ignoring. This is a matter of choice with some, while the minority strive very sensibly to enlarge the domain of physical science by trespassing on the forbidden grounds of metaphysics, so distasteful to some materialists. These scientists are wise in their generation. For all their wonderful discoveries would go for nothing, and remain for ever headless bodies, unless they lift the veil of matter and strain their eyes to see beyond.

For we are told by Prof. Crookes that:

“Hitherto, it has been considered that if the atomic weight of a metal, determined by different observers, setting out from different compounds, was always found to be constant . . . then such metal must rightly take rank among the simple or elementary bodies. We learn . . . that this is no longer the case. Again, we have here wheels within wheels. Gadolinium is not an element but a compound. . . We have shown that yttrium is a complex of five or more new constituents. And who shall venture to gainsay that each of these constituents, if attacked in some different manner, and if the result were submitted to a test more delicate and searching than the radiant-matter test, might not be still further divisible? Where, then, is the actual ultimate element? As we advance it recedes like the tantalizing mirage lakes and groves seen by the tired and thirsty traveller in the desert. Are we in our quest for truth to be thus deluded and baulked? The very idea of an element, as something absolutely primary and ultimate, seems to be growing less and less distinct. . .”

As described by Seers — those who can see the motion of the interstellar shoals, and follow them in their evolution clairvoyantly — they are dazzling, like specks of virgin snow in radiant sunlight. Their velocity is swifter than thought, quicker than any mortal physical eye could follow, and, as well as can be judged from the tremendous rapidity of their course, the motion is circular. . . . . Standing on an open plain, on a mountain summit especially, and gazing into the vast vault above and the spacial infinitudes around, the whole atmosphere seems ablaze with them, the air soaked through with these dazzling coruscations. At times, the intensity of their motion produces flashes like the Northern lights during the Aurora Borealis. The sight is so marvellous, that, as the Seer gazes into this inner world, and feels the scintillating points shoot past him, he is filled with awe at the thought of other, still greater mysteries, that lie beyond, and within, this radiant ocean. . . . .

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky — Vol. 1
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-3-15.htm

The Nature Of Space

Lambert Dolphin a retired physicist has some very useful insights into the nature of space which are well worth considering.

" Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) taught that the physical world was made up of four elements: air, earth, fire and water. Tying these all together so that the "elements" intercommunicated was a "subtle" medium, a fifth element: the aether -- later to be known as the vacuum. (The Latin root vacuus means "empty"). In a sense the aether was the substratum of the material world. The Greeks believed that "nature abhors a vacuum" so they could not imagine space as being totally empty.
The Greeks believed the stars were suspended from, or attached to, a rotating crystalline shell at a fixed distance from the earth. When some of the "stars" (planets) were observed to be moving with respect to the "fixed" stars, a series of rotating crystal spheres was postulated. The earth was believed to be fixed, immovable, and at the center of the creation. Not until the 16th Century were these Greek (Ptolemaic) ideas challenged by the Copernican revolution. One of the most mysterious concepts in western physics since Aristotle's day is the concept of the vacuum. Until Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) challenged the notion, the velocity of light was assumed by most everyone to be infinite, so the nature of the space between the earth and the crystal spheres was not of great concern.



Rene Descartes (1596-1640) championed the theory that the aether was a plenum, from the Greek word meaning "full." Because it was so difficult for the scientists of that era to understand "action at a distance," Descartes imagined that a very dense medium of very small particles pervaded everything. This medium was capable of transmitting force from one object to another by collisions. The aether "particles" were in constant motion and there were no spaces between the particles. In a sense the aether was more solid than matter, yet invisible. Descartes universe was a purely "mechanical universe" and his theories were soon superseded.

Galileo's former secretary, Evangelista Torricelli filled a long glass tube with mercury in 1644. Inverting the tube into a dish of mercury he observed that the mercury dropped some 30 inches at the closed upper end of the tube, thereby creating what was obviously a vacuum. Blaise Pascal (1623 -1662) took this work even further and soon everyone was convinced that the vacuum of space was empty after all.

If light were corpuscular in nature as some believed, it was not difficult to imagine that light "particles" (we now call them photons) could traverse a pure vacuum without the necessity of a real medium pervading all of space. But other experiments soon began to show that light was a wave phenomenon. Of course waves could travel through the plenum aether by collisions, however at the time only compressional waves were imagined. [Sound waves or seismic waves are compressional in nature, for instance, but light waves proved to be transverse]. In parallel with all these growing controversies, the velocity of light was finally measured by Olaf Roemer in 1675 and found to be finite, although the values he obtained were a few percent higher than the present value, 299,792.4358 km/sec.

By the time of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) the aether was believed by many scientists to be "luminiferous." That is, the aether was said to be more fluid than solid, though it was elastic, and therefore it was a medium which would support waves. James Clerk Maxwell (1839 - 1879) enjoyed great success when he found a set of equations which beautifully described how light waves could travel through such a luminiferous aether. He showed that light waves are composed of oscillating electric and magnetic vectors in an x-y plane for a wave traveling in the z-direction. For a waves to exist at all, it is natural to suppose that there is some sort of supporting medium. Such a medium must possess elasticity (a spring like property) and also inertia, (a mass like like property). In fact, the velocity of a wave in any medium is equal to the square root of the stiffness divided by the density of the medium.

In the case of electromagnetic waves (gamma rays, x-rays, radio waves, heat, and light of various wavelengths), Maxwell found that the aether possessed an electric field scaling parameter, called "dielectric permittivity," and a magnetic field scaling parameter, called permeability, such that the velocity of light was equal to one over the square root of permeability times permittivity. In support of the notion that the aether was a real medium it was observed that empty space behaved like a transmission line with a "characteristic impedance" of 377 ohms, (which is the ratio of permeability to permittivity for "free space.")

This new theory also explained how light slows down in glass, in gases, in water -- because media other than the vacuum had a different permeability and permittivity. The aether was once again thought of as a very real medium which could be stretched or compressed -- it had resilience or compliance, and inertia. Yet no known physical substance had a stiffness to mass density ratio anywhere near 9 x 1016 which was required of the aether as a medium. The aether appeared to possess elasticity but negligible inertia
http://ldolphin.org/studynotes/space.htm

An interview with Nikola Tesla

New York Herald Tribune, September 22, 1929

What, then, about power transmission by radio? Laurence M. Cockaday, the technical editor of this radio section, had expressed the opinion several weeks ago that, with present apparatus at least, it was hardly feasible. Mr. Tesla agreed to discuss the point at length. As a result, he made public for the first time one of the most extraordinary conclusions - that Hertz waves do not exist! If his theory is true, there may be found in it more adequate explanations of "dead spots", fading, reflection and a dozen other problems that have always puzzled the profession.

The inventor began by referring to Cockaday's article:

"I have read the article, and I quite agree with the opinion expressed - that wireless power transmission is impractical with present apparatus. This conclusion will be naturally reached by any one who recognizes the nature of the agent by which the impulses are transmitted in present wireless practice.

"When Dr. Heinrich Hertz undertook his experiments from 1887 to 1889 his object was to demonstrate a theory postulating a medium filling all space, called the ether, which was structureless, of inconceivable tenuity and yet solid and possessed of rigidity incomparably greater than that of the hardest steel. He obtained certain results and the whole world acclaimed them as an experimental verification of that cherished theory. But in reality what he observed tended to prove just its fallacy.

"I had maintained for many years before that such a medium as supposed could not exist, and that we must rather accept the view that all space is filled with a gaseous substance. On repeating the Hertz experiments with much improved and very powerful apparatus, I satisfied myself that what he had observed was nothing else but effects of longitudinal waves in a gaseous medium, that is to say, waves, propagated by alternate compression and expansion. He had observed waves in the ether much of the nature of sound waves in the air.

"Up to 1896, however, I did not succeed in obtaining a positive experimental proof of the existence of such a medium. But in that year I brought out a new form of vacuum tube capable of being charged to any desired potential, and operated it with effective pressures of about 4,000,000 volts. I produced cathodic and other rays of transcending intensity. The effects, according to my view, were due to minute particles of matter carrying enormous electrical charges, which, for want of a better name, I designated as matter not further decomposable. Subsequently those particles were called electrons.

"One of the first striking observations made with my tubes was that a purplish glow for several feet around the end of the tube was formed, and I readily ascertained that it was due to the escape of the charges of the particles as soon as they passed out into the air; for it was only in a nearly perfect vacuum that these charges could be confined to them. The coronal discharge proved that there must be a medium besides air in the space, composed of particles immeasurably smaller than those of air, as otherwise such a discharge would not be possible. On further investigation I found that this gas was so light that a volume equal to that of the earth would weigh only about one-twentieth of a pound.

"The velocity of any sound wave depends on a certain ratio between elasticity and density, and for this ether or universal gas the ratio is 800,000,000,000 times greater than for air. This means that the velocity of the sound waves propagated through the ether is about 300,000 times greater than that of the sound waves in air, which travel at approximately 1,085 feet a second. Consequently the speed in ether is 900,000 x 1,085 feet, or 186,000 miles, and that is the speed of light.

"As the waves of this kind are all the more penetrative the shorter they are, I have for years urged the wireless experts to use such waves in order to get good results, but it took a long time before they settled upon this practice.

"Although the world is still skeptical as to the feasibility of my undertaking, I note that some advanced experts, at least, share my views, and I hope that before long wireless power transmission will be as common as transmission by wires."

According to Mr. Tesla, the present broadcasting station does not propagate Hertzian waves, as has always been supposed, but acts more like an "ether whistle" - transmitting waves through the ether similar to the waves transmitted by an ordinary whistle through the air. He also expressed his disbelief in the Heaviside layer, and claimed that the reflection of waves back toward the earth was due to the change of medium encountered at the vacuous boundary of the atmosphere.

At Colorado Springs, about thirty years ago, this scientist had a Tesla coil seventy-five feet in diameter which produced voltages above 12,000,000, and sparks over 100 feet long. Electrical flashes were created which were the nearest approach to lightning that man has ever made. During his experiments there, of over a year, Tesla claims that he transmitted a considerable amount of electrical current to the other side of the earth. It was upon these, and later experiments that he bases his present prediction.
http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1929-09-22.htm

Michael Faraday on the Structure of the Aether, and the Nature of Action-at-a-Distance

THOUGHTS ON RAY-VIBRATIONS (1)
To Richard Phillips, Esq.

Dear Sir,

At your request I will endeavor to convey to you a notion of that which I ventured to say at the close of the last Friday-evening Meeting, incidental to the account I gave of Wheatstone's electro-magnetic chronoscope; but from first to last understand that I merely threw out as matter for speculation, the vague impressions of my mind, for I gave nothing as the result of sufficient consideration, or as the settled conviction, or even probable conclusion at which I had arrived.

The point intended to be set forth for consideration of the hearers was, whether it was not possible that vibrations which in a certain theory are assumed to account for radiation and radiant phaenomena may not occur in the lines of force which connect particles, and consequently masses of matter together; a notion which as far as is admitted, will dispense with the aether, which in another view, is supposed to be the medium in which these vibrations take place.

You are aware of the speculation (2) which I some time since uttered respecting that view of the nature of matter which considers its ultimate atoms as centres of force, and not as so many little bodies surrounded by forces, the bodies being considered in the abstract as independent of the forces and capable of existing without them. In the latter view, these little particles have a definite form and a certain limited size; in the former view such is not the case, for that which represents size may be considered as extending to any distance to which the lines of force of the particle extend: the particle indeed is supposed to exist only by these forces, and where they are it is. The consideration of matter under this view gradually led me to look at the lines of force as being perhaps the seat of vibrations of radiant phenomena.

Another consideration bearing conjointly on the hypothetical view both of matter and radiation, arises from the comparison of the velocities with which the radiant action and certain powers of matter are transmitted. The velocity of light through space is about 190,000 miles in a second; the velocity of electricity is, by the experiments of Wheatstone, shown to be as great as this, if not greater: the light is supposed to be transmitted by vibrations through an aether which is, so to speak, destitute of gravitation, but infinite in elasticity; the electricity is transmitted through a small metallic wire, and is often viewed as transmitted by vibrations also. That the electric transference depends on the forces or powers of the matter of the wire can hardly be doubted, when we consider the different conductibility of the various metallic and other bodies; the means of affecting it by heat or cold; the way in which conducting bodies by combination enter into the constitution of non-conducting substances, and the contrary; and the actual existence of one elementary body, carbon, both in the conducting and non-conducting state. The power of electric conduction (being a transmission of force equal in velocity to that of light) appears to be tied up in and dependent upon the properties of the matter, and is, as it were, existent in them.

I suppose we may compare together the matter of the aether and ordinary matter (as, for instance, the copper of the wire through which the electricity is conducted), and consider them as alike in their essential constitution; i.e. either as both composed of little nuclei, considered in the abstract as matter, and of force or power associated with these nuclei, or else both consisting of mere centres of force, according to Boscovich's theory and the view put forth in my speculation; for there is no reason to assume that the nuclei are more requisite in the one case than in the other. It is true that the copper gravitates and the aether does not, and that therefore the copper is ponderable and the aether is not; but that cannot indicate the presence of nuclei in the copper more than in the aether, for of all the powers of matter gravitation is the one in which the force extends to the greatest possible distance from the supposed nucleus, being infinite in relation to the size of the latter, and reducing the nucleus to a mere centre of force. The smallest atom of matter on the earth acts directly on the smallest atom of matter in the sun, though they are 95,000,000 miles apart; further, atoms which, to our knowledge, are at least nineteen times that distance, and indeed in cometary masses, far more, are in a similar way tied together by the lines of force extending from and belonging to each. What is there in the condition of the particles of the supposed aether, if there be even only one such particle between us and the sun, that can in subtility and extent compare to this?

Let us not be confused by the ponderability and gravitation of heavy matter, as if they proved the presence of the abstract nuclei; these are due not to the nuclei, but to the force super-added to them, if the nuclei exist at all; and, if the aether particles be without this force, which according to the assumption is the case, then they are more material, in the abstract sense, than the matter of this our globe; for matter, according to the assumption, being made up of nuclei and force, the aether particles have in this respect proportionately more of the nucleus and less of the force.

On the other hand, the infinite elasticity assumed as belonging to the particles of the aether, is as striking and positive a force of it as gravity is of ponderable particles, and produces in its way effects as great; in witness whereof we have all the varieties of radiant agency as exhibited in luminous, caloric, and actinic phaenomena.

Perhaps I am in error in thinking the idea generally formed of the aether is that its nuclei are almost infinitely small, and that such force as it has, namely its elasticity, is almost infinitely intense. But if such be the received notion, what then is left in the aether but force or centres of force? As gravitation and solidity do not belong to it, perhaps many may admit this conclusion; but what are gravitation and solidity? certainly not the weight and contact of the abstract nuclei. The one is the consequence of an attractive force, which can act at distances as great as the mind of man can estimate or conceive; and the other is the consequence of a repulsive force, which forbids for ever the contact or touch of any two nuclei; so that these powers or properties should not in any degree lead those persons who conceive of the aether as a thing consisting of force only, to think any otherwise of ponderable matter, except that it has more and other forces associated with it than the aether has.

In experimental philosophy we can, by the phaenomena presented, recognize various kinds of lines of force; thus there are the lines of gravitating force, those of electro-static induction, those of magnetic action, and others partaking of a dynamic character might be perhaps included. The lines of electric and magnetic action are by many considered as exerted through space like the lines of gravitating force. For my own part, I incline to believe that when there are intervening particles of matter (being themselves only centres of force), they take part in carrying on the force through the line, but that when there are none, the line proceeds through space. Whatever the view adopted respecting them may be, we can, at all events, affect these lines of force in a manner which may be conceived as partaking of the nature of a shake or lateral vibration. For suppose two bodies, A B, distant from each other and under mutual action, and therefore connected by lines of force, and let us fix our attention upon one resultant of force, having an invariable direction as regards space; if one of the bodies move in the least degree right or left, or if its power be shifted for a moment within the mass (neither of these cases being difficult to realise if A and B be either electric or magnetic bodies), then an effect equivalent to a lateral disturbance will take place in the resultant upon which we are fixing our attention; for, either it will increase in force whilst the neighboring results are diminishing, or it will fall in force as they are increasing.

It may be asked, what lines of force are there in nature which are fitted to convey such an action and supply for the vibrating theory the place of the aether? I do not pretend to answer this question with any confidence; all I can say is, that I do not perceive in any part of space, whether (to use the common phrase) vacant or filled with matter, anything but forces and the lines in which they are exerted. The lines of weight or gravitating force are, certainly, extensive enough to answer in this respect any demand made upon them by radiant phaenomena; and so, probably, are the lines of magnetic force: and then who can forget that Mossotti has shown that gravitation, aggregation, electric force, and electro-chemical action may all have one common connection or origin; and so, in their actions at a distance, may have in common that infinite scope which some of these actions are known to possess?

The view which I am so bold to put forth considers, therefore, radiation as a kind of species of vibration in the lines of force which are known to connect particles and also masses of matter together. It endeavors to dismiss the aether, but not the vibration. The kind of vibration which, I believe, can alone account for the wonderful, varied, and beautiful phaenomena of polarization, is not the same as that which occurs on the surface of disturbed water, or the waves of sound in gases or liquids, for the vibrations in these cases are direct, or to and from the centre of action, whereas the former are lateral. It seems to me, that the resultant of two or more lines of force is in an apt condition for that action which may be considered as equivalent to a lateral vibration; whereas a uniform medium, like the aether, does not appear apt, or more apt than air or water.

The occurrence of a change at one end of a line of force easily suggests a consequent change at the other. The propagation of light, and therefore probably of all radiant action, occupies time; and, that a vibration of the line of force should account for the phaenomena of radiation, it is necessary that such vibration should occupy time also. I am not aware whether there are any data by which it has been, or could be ascertained whether such a power as gravitation acts without occupying time, or whether lines of force being already in existence, such a lateral disturbance at one end as I have suggested above, would require time, or must of necessity be felt instantly at the other end.

As to that condition of the lines of force which represents the assumed high elasticity of the aether, it cannot in this respect be deficient: the question here seems rather to be, whether the lines are sluggish enough in their action to render them equivalent to the aether in respect of the time known experimentally to be occupied in the transmission of radiant force.

The aether is assumed as pervading all bodies as well as space: in the view now set forth, it is the forces of the atomic centres which pervade (and make) all bodies, and also penetrate all space. As regards space, the difference is, that the aether presents successive parts of centres of action, and the present supposition only lines of action; as regards matter, the difference is, that the aether lies between the particles and so carries on the vibrations, whilst as respects the supposition, it is by the lines of force between the centres of the particles that the vibration is continued. As to the difference in intensity of action within matter under the two views, I suppose it will be very difficult to draw any conclusion, for when we take the simplest state of common matter and that which most nearly causes it to approximate to the condition of the aether, namely the state of the rare gas, how soon do we find in its elasticity and the mutual repulsion of its particles, a departure from the law, that the action is inversely as the square of the distance!

And now, my dear Phillips, I must conclude. I do not think I should have allowed these notions to have escaped from me, had I not been led unawares, and without previous consideration, by the circumstances of the evening on which I had to appear suddenly and occupy the place of another. Now that I have put them on paper, I feel that I ought to have kept them much longer for study, consideration, and, perhaps final rejection; and it is only because they are sure to go abroad in one way or another, in consequence of their utterance on that evening, that I give shape, if shape it may be called, in this reply to your inquiry. One thing is certain, that any hypothetical view of radiation which is likely to be received or retained as satisfactory, must not much longer comprehend alone certain phaenomena of light, but must include those of heat and of actinic influence also, and even the conjoined phaenomena of sensible heat and chemical power produced by them. In this respect, a view, which is in some degree founded upon the ordinary forces of matter, may perhaps find a little consideration amongst the other views that will probably arise. I think it likely that I have made many mistakes in the preceeding pages, for even to myself, my ideas on this point appear only as the shadow of a speculation, or as one of those impressions on the mind which are allowable for a time as guides to thought and research. He who labours in experimental inquiries knows how numerous these are, and how often their apparent fitness and beauty vanish before the progress and development of real natural truth.

I am, my dear Phillips,

Ever truly yours,

M. Faraday,

April 15, 1846
http://www.padrak.com/ine/FARADAY1.html

Go Colloidal

The below discussion colloids is quoted from an article by Dr James B. Calvert. The article might be of great interest to any colloidal silver enthusiasts (as well as those interested in colloidal gold and colloidal copper, etc.).


There should be a more exciting name for the phenomena to be discussed here. The dull term colloid that reminds us of glue is, nevertheless, the accepted word. It was coined in the early 19th century by the Father of Physical Chemistry, Thomas Graham (1805-1869), to distinguish those materials in aqueous solution that would not pass through a parchment membrane from those that would. Glue was indeed a material that would not, and the Greek for glue is kolla, from which we also get "protocol" and "collagen." Those that would pass through were things like salt, and other soluble crystalline substances, which Graham called crystalloids. As we shall see, the field is much, much richer than this.

Colloids received little attention until the end of the century, when van't Hoff, Oswald and Nernst founded modern physical chemistry and they, and others, became fascinated by colloid phenomena. There had been famous observations by Tyndall and others in the meantime, but chemists could not get excited over glue. Then, in the 1920's and 1930's, the importance of colloids to industrial processes and biochemistry changed everything. Colloids became a hot field, and soon every elementary textbook said something about them. In writing some of the other articles on the site recently, I became gradually aware of the fascination of colloids, and recognized that my knowledge of them was very deficient. This article is the result, and I hope it will serve as an introduction to what colloids are all about, and demonstrate how interesting and useful they are.

An interesting philosophical point was suggested by this study. Colloids are often called a "fourth state of matter," and I wondered just how meaningful this concept is. We shall find that it is very difficult to encapsulate any concept concerning colloids in a word, though heaven knows chemists have tried, and many words have been coined. It is necessary to name things to think about them efficiently, and one thing scientists have done assiduously is to assign names. Biology comes to mind, with endless terms and names based only on surface appearances, at least until recently. Naming gives the appearance of knowledge, where there is no real knowledge at all. The antithesis to mere naming is mathematical analysis, which gives real conclusions and effective knowledge. The danger of names comes when they are regarded as real things and are used to delimit instead of simply to denote and describe.

It is easy to recognize the three conventional states of matter in ice, water and steam. The names solid, liquid and gas can be attached to certain suites of properties, and makes a useful distinction. In a gas, particles of the substance move freely and have to be stopped by walls. In a liquid, the particles are sometimes associated, sometimes not, but always occupy a certain volume. In a solid, the particles cannot move far relatively, and can only vibrate. Many substances can be classified by these properties, but the terms do not separate matter into three mutually exclusive boxes, and may not be descriptive enough. Where is tar, for example, or jelly, or a substance above its critical point? Colloids will give many examples of substances for which the simple classification into three states is wholly inadequate.

The properties of matter depend almost completely on its structure. All metals are alike, to a good approximation. They are shiny, soft, tough substances that conduct electricity. All ionic crystals are alike (granted differences in crystal symmetry). They are hard, transparent and do not conduct electricity in the solid state. They can usually be crushed into white powders. The variations between metals, or between ionic crystals, are very much less important than their similarities. Saying that a substance is a metal, or an ionic crystal, says much more than simply that it is a solid. Solidity is only a macroscopic appearance, of no fundamental significance, like being green.

I have seen the definition of matter as "that which occupies space." But what about gases? They occupy space, of course, but two or more gases can occupy the same space, as far as appearances go. The important thing is to use terms like solid, liquid, gas only as far as they are useful descriptions, and not consider them as exclusive classifications into which everything must fit. To see that this is not trivial, consider the many sciences (not generally chemistry or physics) in which there are bitter controversies about which named category to assign to some object or process. We should not be limited by the arbitrary names we give our concepts.

Properties of Colloids I recalled that colloids were particles larger than molecules, but smaller than grains of sand. This is true, and colloidal dimensions can be considered to be from about 10 nm up to 1000 nm, or 1 ìm, but mere size is not the important thing about colloids. The overwhelmingly important property of colloids is that they have very large surface area. To some degree, they are all surface and their properties are those of their surfaces. I do not remember appreciating this properly before, but I can assure you of its significance. Incidentally, 1 ìm is about the size of a bacterium. I shall use the word "colloid" to refer to a substance of colloidal dimensions, or to a colloidal system, indifferently.

To see the significance of this observation, consider the cubic centimeter in the diagram at the right. In this form, it has an area of 0.0006 m2. We could say that it is almost all volume. Most of its molecules are safely resident behind its surface, secure from disturbance or attack. Let us now divide it into thin laminae, 10 nm thick, a colloidal distance. The cube becomes a million laminae, with a total surface area of 200 m2. Every molecule is now only a short distance from the cold outdoors, and the material is all surface. We have turned the mass cube into a laminated colloid by this delicate slicing alone.

Continuing, we now slice each of the million laminae into a million fibers, and the surface area doubles. We still have a colloid, of course, with two dimensions colloidal, but have not increased the area greatly, not as we did in the first slicing. We can expect fibrillar colloids as well as laminar ones. Finally, each fiber is chopped into a million bits, giving a corpuscular colloid. This increases the surface area only by 50%, to 600 m2. From the mass to the corpuscle, the surface area has been increased by a factor of a million, which is typical of a colloid. Note that most of this increase came with the first dimension to "go colloidal," so we can call anything with any least dimension of colloidal size to be a colloid. This was another thing that I did not appreciate in my ignorance.

References Most textbooks of Elementary Chemistry will include a chapter on colloids that makes a good introduction to the subject.

R. J. Hartman, Colloid Chemistry (London: Pitman & Sons, 1949). A classic reference with a great deal of description of colloid phenomena of all types.
http://www.liquidvitaminsadvisor.com/colloids.html

The Problem With My Theory

Millions of people all over the world are being fooled by the non-existing electrons.

Here is how the electrons came into existence. Thomson invented an imaginary baby and called it an electron.

Rutherford adopted it and now the men with the long hair are nursing it.
~~Edward Leedskalnin

If you've ever read Leedskalnin's book "Magnetic Current", you'll know that he was non-too-impressed with modern science's portrayal of the electron. The electron is said to be a tiny particle that whizzes around a massive nucleus, made up by protons and neutrons. The neutron has the same mass as a proton BUT has no charge. The electron has a negative charge that effectively cancels the opposing positive charge of the proton to produce a neutral atom.

Following the pioneering experiments that took place with discharge tubes in the 19th Century, it has been supposed that electricity is the flow of electrons, or rather, wiggling electrons that do not move, but allow "current" to pass through. I suspected that this electric current had something to do with the fluid aether, so I set-about trying to design a new model for the atom that was based in aether theory.

In the previous post, Dr.Paul Rowe was illustrating his theory that hydrogen could be produced in a vacuum, and he does so in the unconventional, but most charming, form of a play, "The Fall and Rise of the House Of Cards." Rowe had personally experienced the appearance of hydrogen following experiments where he detonated explosives containing aluminum flake in vacuum. Intrigued by the presence of hydrogen, Rowe began to investigate other experiments where hydrogen was procured from a vacuum. It became more apparent that the early pioneering experimenters were also aware of the puzzling appearance of hydrogen, under certain conditions, in an extreme vacuum. The conclusion that Rowe comes to is that a vacuum is not a void, but a "concentrated matrix of protons and electrons". The matrix to which Rowe refers is better known, in some circles, as the luminiferous aether.

I at first thought I might be able to give something of my own ideas to Rowe's theory, but instead, it has shown me that there is a problem with my model of the atom (at least it now gives me an opportunity to develop a much better one!) The problem with my theory arises because I have designed the electron as a structure in the aether. I had concieved the proton and electron as dipolar vortices in the aether, so that I could go on to construct an atom that looked like a vortex ring - a donutom (I figured that the neutron would later emerge as being part of the mass that made up a donutom.)

I imagined electricity, not as a flow of electrons, but as a flow in the aether - similar to the wind that flows between high and low weather systems. Indeed, I thought of the electron as a cyclone which sucked up the aether and it was this force that was somehow generating negative electricity. Positive electricity would be a force generated by the proton as it blows out the aether. To me, electricity was not so much a flow of electrons, but a flow of aether energy through a chain of protons and/or electrons. Though electricity was a seperate entity to protons and electrons - it was inextricably linked to them. This makes sense when you think of electricity flowing through conductors, but what of the electricity that passes through a vacuum? It would mean that negative electricity in a vacuum must be involved with electrons. In many ways, the electricity which I tried to concieve from the aether, shares the same inhibition as mainstream theory - in that electricity is a fundamental property of matter.

Theoretically, dipolar vortices can be created in the aether fluid by "something" that was able to move very, very fast - and if I understand fluid dynamics correctly - it would have to be moving faster than the speed of light. That "something" is electricity. If the proton and electron are created AFTER the passing of electricity - that means electricity was present BEFORE the creation of the dipolar vortices. This is important because it highlights a problem with my theory, in that electricity can exist independently of matter. If the electricity is not made up of electrons torn off the electrode, then it becomes more obvious that electricity, and more specifically the electron, is strictly a property of the aether.

Rowe's investigations were heavily centred on hydrogen arising from the fluid aether in an extreme vacuum. The electron, which in my hypothesis should also be present, perhaps in the form of helium, is conspicuous in its absence.

I'm missing something. Somewhere I've misunderstood something. I'm still convinced that the atom looks something like a donutom, but not quite the way that I have so far envisioned. I don't think the electron exists as a vortex in the aether - that's if the electron even exists at all. It's time to don my top-hat and return to the 19th Century, to take another look at those early experiments with electrical discharges in vacuum tubes, and to finally understand why they gave birth to the electron.

A copy of Leedskalnin's book "Magnetic Current" is available here:
http://www.linux-host.org/energy/leed3.htm

You can read Rowe's play, "The Fall and Rise of the House Of Cards" thanks to a post on Sepp Hasslberger's blog:
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2006/06/hydrogen_from_space_the_aether.html