Abstract
IN your issue of the 12th inst. the Duke of Argyll asks, “Is there any difference in this respect between molar and molecular motion?” namely, as regards the persuasion which most men entertain that where there is motion there must be some “thing” to move. The answer to this question appears to be the very direct one that there is the following fundamental difference between molar motions and some molecular motions, and that it intimately concerns that belief. All molar motions are secondary motions, i.e. they consist in the drifting from place to place of underlying motions (and, indeed, in the case of those motions which human beings can perceive even with the utmost aid of the microscope, they consist in the drifting from place to place of vast accumulations of such underlying motions), while, in contrast to this, there are some molecular motions which are primary—i.e. which have no other motions underlying them, and which do not consist in the drifting from place to place of more subtile motions.
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STONEY, G. How Thought presents itself among the Phenomena of Nature. Nature 31, 529 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031529b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031529b0
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