Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 109 June to November 1904 . em to be an effectdepending on the crowdedness of elec-trons; but when an atom breaks upinto unequal parts, the smaller por-tion must in that case undergo con-siderable expansion, and that would beinconsistent with the constancy ofgravitation, if it depended on crowd-edness: hence I think it more probablethat it depends on some interactionbetween positive and negative elec-tricitj^ and that it is generated whenthese two come together, — that iswhenever an atom of matter is formed. The formation of an atom of mat-ter out of electr
Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 109 June to November 1904 . em to be an effectdepending on the crowdedness of elec-trons; but when an atom breaks upinto unequal parts, the smaller por-tion must in that case undergo con-siderable expansion, and that would beinconsistent with the constancy ofgravitation, if it depended on crowd-edness: hence I think it more probablethat it depends on some interactionbetween positive and negative elec-tricitj^ and that it is generated whenthese two come together, — that iswhenever an atom of matter is formed. The formation of an atom of mat-ter out of electricity is a new idea,and has as yet no experimental justi-fication. The breaking up of complexatoms into simpler forms, and thepartial resolution of an atom intodust or constituent electrons, is allthat is as yet experimentally justi-fiable and all therefore that ought tobe mentioned; but the inverse processseems to me naturally to follow, and Ilook to the time when some laboratoryworkers will exhibit matter newly formedfrom stuff which is not matter, instead. Hypothetical portrait of a hydrogen and of a radium atom, absurdly magnified. The darkregion is supposed to represent positive electricity, whatever that may be; the dots areintended for electrons, and are necessarily drawn much too big, or they could not be seeneven in a high-power microscope. They are careering about in orbits all of the sameperiod, except in so far as they perturb each other; and some are represented as occa-sionally escaping, eilher temporarily or permanently, from the attractive sphere of influ-ence of the positive electricity. ELECTRIC THEORY OF MATTER. 389
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