Le Bon's X-rays

The X-Rays ~

When the cathode rays --- that is to say, the electrons emitted by a Crookes’ tube or by a radioactive body, meet an obstacle, they give birth to special radiations called x-rays when they come from a Crookes’ tube, and gamma rays when emitted by a radioactive body. These radiations travel in a straight line, and can pass through dense obstacles. They are not reflected, refracted, nor polarized, and this absolutely differentiates them from light. They are not deviated by a magnet, and this separates them sharply from the cathode rays, whose power of penetration is, besides, infinitely more feeble. The x- or gamma-rays possess the property of rendering air a conductor of electricity, and consequently of dissipating electric charges. They render phosphorescent various substances, and impress photographic plates.

...Now, the x-rays, supposed to be so near to this extreme region of the ultraviolet, pass, on the contrary, through all obstacles, thick metal plates included. If they did not possess fluorescence and photographic action, no one would have dreamed of comparing them to ultraviolet light

...The impossibility of giving to the x-rays that deviation by a magnetic field which the cathode rays undergo, has caused them to be looked upon as no longer possessing any electricity, but this conclusion may easily be contested. Suppose, in fact, that the x-rays are constituted of electric atoms still more minute than the ordinary negative electrons, and that their speed of propagation borders on that of light. According to the researches to be presently mentioned, electrons having such a velocity would have an infinite mass. Their resistance to motion being infinite, it is evident that they could not be deviated by a magnetic field, though composed of electric elements.

What now seems to be most evident is that there is no more reason to connect the x-rays with electricity than with light. Assimilations such as these are the offspring of that habit of mind which induces us to connect new things with those previously known. The x-rays simply represent one of the manifestations of intra-atomic energy liberated by the dissociation of matter. They constitute one of the stages of the vanishing of matter, a form of energy having its own characteristics, which must be defined solely by these characteristics without endeavoring to fit it into previously arranged categories. The universe is full of unknown forces which, like the x-rays of today, and the electricity of a century ago, were discovered only when we possessed reagents capable of revealing them. Had phosphorescent bodies and photographic plates been unknown, the existence of x-rays could not have been verified. Physicists handled Crookes’ tubes, which yield these rays in abundance, for a quarter of a century without discovering them.

If it is probable that the x-rays have their seat in the ether, it seems certain that they are not constituted by vibrations similar to those of light. To me, they represent the extreme limit of material things, one of the last stages of the vanishing of matter before its return to the ether.

...Finally, we come to the gamma radiations, which are no longer stayed by any obstacle, which no magnetic attraction can deviate, and which seem to constitute one of the last phases of the dissociation of matter before its final return to the ether.

...If the earth were not protected from the extreme solar ultraviolet rays by its atmosphere, life on its surface, under existing circumstances, probably would be impossible.

Solar light does not possess the property of dissociating the molecules of gases. These can only be dissociated by the absolutely extreme ultraviolet radiations. If, as is probable, these radiations exist in the solar spectrum, before their absorption by the atmospheric envelope, an energetic dissociation of the aerial gases must take place on the confines of our air. This cause must have contributed, in the course of ages, to deprive certain stars, like the moon, of their atmosphere.

~~Gustave Le Bon
http://www.rexresearch.com/lebonmat/lebonmat.htm

The Origin of Electricity

When we approach the detailed study of the facts on which are based the theories set forth in this work, we shall find that electricity is one of the most constant manifestations of the dissociation of matter. Matter being nothing else than intra-atomic energy itself, it may be said that to dissociate matter is simply to liberate a little intra-atomic energy and to oblige it to take another form. Electricity is precisely one of these forms.

After having established the phenomenon of the general dissociation of matter, I asked myself if the universal electricity, the origin of which remained unexplained, was not precisely the consequence of the universal dissociation of matter. My experiments fully verified this hypothesis, and they proved that electricity is one of the most important forms of intra-atomic energy liberated by the dematerialization of matter. I was led to this conclusion after having satisfied myself that the products which escape from a body electrified at sufficient tension are entirely identical with those given out by radioactive substances on the road to dissociation. The various methods employed to obtain electricity, notably friction, only hasten the dissociation of matter. I shall refer, for the details of this demonstration, to the chapter treating of the subject, confining myself at present to pointing out summarily the different generalizations which flow from the doctrine of intra-atomic energy. It is not electricity alone, but also solar heat, which, as we shall see, may be considered one of its manifestations.

~~Gustave Le Bon
http://www.rexresearch.com/lebonmat/lebonmat.htm

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