Abstract
To students with a limited knowledge of mathematics who desire a sound theoretical basis on which to build we can heartily recommend this book. The author writes in a most interesting and convincing way, and gives an excellent preliminary introduction to the latest electrical theories, as well as a clear account of the apparatus and methods used in an electrical laboratory. He points out that according to the electron theory, matter is an electric manifestation, and so the mass of a body must be explicable as electric inertia. The electric inertia of a magnetic field can be represented as due to the motion of electric tubes of force in the luminiferous ether. In this way electric inertia is in its turn “explained” as “mechanical inertia” of the hypothetical substance invented to oenable our minds to form a rational picture of other physical phenomena. The author points out that, in a certain sense, simplification is thus attained. All .natural phenomena are referred to the properties of the ether. Nevertheless, the mystery is but changed. We may have explained matter in terms of ether, but how are we to explain ether ? The book closes with this question unanswered.
The Theory of Experimental Electricity.
By W. C. Dampier Whetham. (Cambridge Physical Series.) Third edition. Pp. xi + 349. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1923.) 12s. 6d. net.
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 112, 825 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112825a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112825a0