MYSTERY OF ETHER

Evening Star, Issue 15479, 29 April 1914, Page 5

MYSTERY OF ETHER

The unsolved mystery of the ether of space was the subject of a recent striking lecture by Sir Oliver Lodge. Matter we could move, he said, but,not the ether which occupies ail space and permeates all matter. It made no appeal to the senses, for if we were to comprehend anything there must be change and variety, not uniformity. The last thing which a deep-sea fish, spending all its life far down in the depths of the ocean, would realise would be water. If anyone suggested to that fish that there was such a thing as water it would deny its existence, and even persecute those who suggested that there was anything of the sort. Sir Oliver explained how he had tried to move ether by a delicate optical arrangement. He demonstrated that there was no friction between matter and ether. The earth travelled through the ether without any friction whatever. Then, was there any connection between matter and ether ? The connection was of the electrical kind. Matter could be moved; 'ether could be strained. People strained ether every time they bent a bow or wound a watch spring. Gravitation was a puzzle. People thought Isaac Newton discovered it, but Newton himself knew better. What ho did was to apply it to astronomy. It was not explained. It was perhaps the next big discovery that remained to be made in physics, and many people were working at it. “Science,” he declared, “is only a thing of yesterday; Threo hundred years ago men were fighting or gathering in the kindly fruits of the earth—doing anything but investigating. We have got a long way on, but there is very much to learn.”