FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
13
The first scientist to attempt to break down this duality was Lord Kelvin. In 1867 he put forward his celebrated vortex-atom theory, in which he postulated that the atom of physical matter might possibly be some form of vortexring motion in and of the substance of the Ether. This theory obtained
say no actual less, it
or no support from contem-
was in fact several decades in advance and there was hardly any, perhaps we might
porary scientists of its time,
little
;
it
evidence to support
Neverthewas a theory destined to bear fruit later on indeed, scientific
it.
;
we might
possibly date the decline
and
fall of
the hard
from that time.
Various lines of research were gradually pointing to the fact that the chemical atom at all events was not simple in its nature, that it was particle theory
conceivably built up of something
Then came the discovery
much more
elementary.
Cathode Rays; later on the discovery of Radio-activity, of Electrons, and finally of Radium the phenomena connected with this substance being ultimately ascertained to be due to the actual disintegration or break-up of the chemical atom. Thus, as the final achievement of the Physical Science of the nineteenth century, we have broken down the old atomic barrier to further advance, the seemingly impenetrable wall of the
:
of " hard,
massy
particles "
which barred the way, and have
advanced at least a few steps into the arcane region beyond. What, then, has Modern Science discovered there ? First and foremost, the corpuscle or electron. The principal fact connected with the phenomena of the cathode rays, and with all radio-active substances, is the existence of exceedingly minute particles to which the name of corpuscle or electron has been given. In 1897 Professor Sir TYiass
J. J.
Thomson succeeded
in ascertaining the
and found it to be only g Jot^^ of the lightest atom hitherto known, i.e.,
of these particles,
or YoV'o^^ ihdii the hydrogen atom.
At
first,
then,
it
was thought that the atom
of
hydrogen