Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
MATTER
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: MAR-MEC
del.icio.us it!
|
MATTER . Our conceptions of the nature and §tructure of matter have been profoundly influenced in See also:recent years by investigations on the See also:Conduction of See also:Electricity through Gases (see CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC) and on Radio-activity (q.v.). These researches and the ideas which they have suggested have already thrown much See also:light on some of the most fundamental questions connected with matter; they have, too, furnished us with far more powerful methods for investigating many problems connected with the structure of matter than those hitherto available. There is thus every See also:reason to believe that our knowledge of the structure of matter will soon become far more precise and See also:complete than it is at See also:present, for now we have the means of settling by testing directly many points which are still doubtful, but which formerly seemed far beyond the reach of experiment. The Molecular Theory of Matter—the only theory ever seriously advocated—supposes that all visible forms of matter are collocations of simpler and smaller portions. There has been a continuous tendency as See also:science has advanced to reduce further and further the number of the different kinds of things of which all matter is supposed to be built up. First came the molecular theory teaching us to regard matter as made up of an enormous number of small particles, each See also:kind of matter having its characteristic particle, thus the particlesof See also:water were supposed to be different from those of See also:air and indeed from those of any other substance. Then came See also:Dalton's Atomic Theory which taught that these molecules, in spite of their almost See also:infinite variety, were all built up of still smaller bodies, the atoms of the chemical elements, and that the number of different types of these smaller bodies was limited to the sixty or seventy types which represent the atoms of the substance regarded by chemists as elements. In 1815 See also:Prout suggested that the atoms of the heavier chemical elements were themselves composite and that they were all built up of atoms of the lightest See also:element, See also:hydrogen, so that all the different forms of matter are edifices built of the same material—the See also:atom of hydrogen. If the atoms of hydrogen do not alter in See also:weight when they combine to See also:form atoms of other elements the atomic weights of all elements would be multiples of that of hydrogen; though the number of elements whose atomic weights are multiples or very nearly so of hydrogen is very striking, there are several which are universally admitted to, have atomic weights differing largely from whole See also:numbers. We do not know enough about gravity to say whether this is due to the See also:change of weight of the hydrogen atoms when they combine to form other atoms, or whether the primordial form from which all matter is built up is something other than the hydrogen atom. Whatever may be the nature of this primordial form, the tendency of all recent discoveries has been to emphasize the truth of the conception of a See also:common basis of matter of all kinds. That the atoms of the different elements have a common basis, that they behave as if they consisted of different numbers of small particles of the same kind, is proved to most minds by the Periodic See also:Law of Mendeleeff and See also:Newlands (see ELEMENT). This law shows that the See also:physical and chemical properties of the different elements are determined by their atomic weights, or to use the See also:language of See also:mathematics, the properties of an element are functions of its atomic weight. Now if we constructed See also:models of the atoms out of different materials, the atomic weight would be but one See also:factor out of many which would See also:influence the physical and chemical proper-ties of the See also:model, we should require to know more than the atomic weight to See also:fix its behaviour. If we were to See also:plot a See also:curve representing the variation of some See also:property of the substance with the atomic weight we should not expect the curve to be a smooth one, for instance two atoms might have the same atomic weight and yet if they were made of different materials have no other property in common. The influence of the atomic weight on the properties of the elements is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the recent developments of physics connected with the See also:discharge of electricity through gases and with radio-activity. The transparency of bodies to RSntgen rays, to See also:cathode rays, to the rays emitted by radio-active substances, the quality of the secondary See also:radiation emitted by the different elements are all determined by the atomic weight of the element. So much is this the See also:case that the behaviour of the element with respect to these rays has been used to determine its atomic weight, when as in the case of See also:Indium, uncertainty as to the See also:valency of the element makes the result of See also:ordinary chemical methods ambiguous. The radio-active elements indeed furnish us with See also:direct See also:evidence of this unity of See also:composition of matter, for not only does one element See also:uranium, produce another, See also:radium, but all the radio-active substances give rise to See also:helium, so that the substance of the atoms of this See also:gas must be contained in the atoms of the radio-active elements. It is not radio-active atoms alone that contain a common constituent, for it has been found that all bodies can by suitable treatment, such as raising them to incandescence or exposing them to ultra-See also:violet light, be made to emit negatively electrified particles, and that these particles are the same from whatever source they may be derived. These particles all carry the same See also:charge of negative electricity and all have the same See also:mass, this mass is exceedingly small even when compared with the mass of an atom of hydrogen, which until the See also:discovery of these particles was the smallest mass known to science. These particles are called corpuscles or electrons; their mass according to the most recent determinations is only about b-a- of that of an atom of hydrogen, and their See also:radius is only about one See also:hundred-thousandth See also:part of the radius of the hydrogen atom. As corpuscles of this kind can be obtained from all substances, we infer that they form a constituent of the atoms of all bodies. The atoms of the different elements do not all contain the same number of corpuscles—there are more corpuscles in the atoms of the heavier elements than in the atoms of the lighter ones; in fact, many different considerations point to the conclusion that the number of corpuscles in the atom of any element is proportional to the atomic weight of the element. Different methods of estimating the exact number of corpuscles in the atom have all led to the conclusion that this number is of the same See also:order as the atomic weight; that, for instance, the number of corpuscles in the atom of See also:oxygen is not a large multiple of 16. Some methods indicate that the number of corpuscles in the atom is equal to the atomic weight, while the maximum value obtained by any method is only about four times the atomic weight. This is one of the points on which further experiments will enable us to speak with greater precision. Thus one of the constituents of all atoms is the negatively charged corpuscle; since the atoms are electrically neutral, this negative charge must be accompanied by an equal See also:positive one, so that on this view the atoms must contain a charge of positive electricity proportional to the atomic weight; the way in which this positive electricity is arranged is a matter of See also:great importance in the See also:consideration of the constitution of matter. The question naturally arises, is the positive electricity done up into definite See also:units like the negative, or does it merely indicate a property acquired by an atom when one or more corpuscles leave it? It is very remarkable that we have up to the present (1910), in spite of many investigations on this point, no direct evidence of the existence of positively charged particles with a mass comparable with that of a corpuscle; the smallest positive particle of which we have any direct indication has a mass equal to the mass of an atom of hydrogen, and it is a most remarkable fact that we get positively charged particles having this mass when we send the electric discharge through gases at See also:low pressures, whatever be the kind of gas. It is no doubt exceedingly difficult to get rid of traces of hydrogen in vessels containing gases at low pressures through which an electric discharge is passing, but the circumstances under which the positively electrified particles just alluded to appear, and the way in which they remain unaltered in spite of all efforts to clear out any traces of hydrogen, all seem to indicate that these positively electrified particles, whose mass is equal to that of an atom of hydrogen, do not come from See also:minute traces of hydrogen present as an impurity but from the oxygen, See also:nitrogen, or helium, or whatever may be the gas through which the discharge passes. If this is so, then the most natural conclusion we can come to is that these positively electrified particles with the mass of the atom of hydrogen are the natural units of positive electricity, just as the corpuscles are those of negative, and that these positive particles form a part of all atoms. Thus in this way we are led to an See also:electrical view of the constitution of the atom. We regard the atom as built up of units of negative electricity and of an equal number of units of positive electricity; these two units are of very different mass, the mass of the negative unit being only 3-t-3-bi of that of the positive. The number of units of either kind is proportional to the atomic weight of the element and of the same order as this quantity. Whether this is anything besides the positive and negative electricity in the atom we do not know. In the present See also:state of our knowledge of the properties of matter it is unnecessary to postulate the existence of anything besides these positive and negative units.
The atom of a chemical element on this view of the constitution of matter is a See also:system formed by n corpuscles and n units of positive electricity which is in See also:equilibrium or in a state of steady See also:motion under the electrical forces which thecharged 211 constituents exert upon each other. See also:Sir J. J. See also:Thomson (Phil. Mag., See also: Thus the electric charge on the particle a z makes it behave as if its mass were increased by E—. . Since this increase in mass is due to the energy in the region outside the charged particle, it is natural to look to that region for this additional mass. This region is traversed by the tubes of force which start from the electrified See also:body and move with it, and a very See also:simple calculation shows that we should get the increase in the mass which is due to the electrification if we suppose that these tubes of force as they move carry with them a certain amount of the See also:ether, and that this ether had mass. The mass of ether thus carried along must be such that the amount of it in unit volume at any part of the field is such that if this were to move with the velocity of light its kinetic energy would be equal to the potential energy of the electric field in the unit volume under consideration. When a See also:tube moves this mass of ether only participates in the motion at right angles to the tube, it is not set in motion by a See also:movement of the tube along its length. We may compare the mass which a charged body acquires in virtue of its charge with the additional mass which a See also:ball apparently acquires when it is placed in water; a ball placed in water behaves as if its mass were greater than its mass when moving in vacuo; we can easily understand why this should be the case, because when the ball in the water moves the water around it must move as well; so that when a force acting on the ball sets it in motion it has to move some of the water as well as the ball, and thus the ball behaves as if its mass were increased. Similarly in the case of the electrified particle, which when it moves carries with it its lines of force, which grip the ether and carry some of it along with them. When the electrified particle is moved a mass of ether has to be moved too, and thus the apparent mass of the particle is increased. The mass of the electrified particle is thus See also:resident in every part of space reached by its lines of force; in this sense an electrified body may be said to extend to an infinite distance; the amount of the mass of the ether attached to the particle diminishes so rapidly as we recede from it that the contributions of regions remote from the particle ',We may measure this velocity with reference to any axes, provided we refer the motion of all the bodies which come into consideration to the same axes. are quite insignificant, and in the case of a particle as small as a corpuscle not one millionth part of its mass will be farther away from it than the radius of an atom. The increase in the mass of a particle due to given charges varies as we have seen inversely as the radius of the particle; thus the smaller the particle the greater the increase in the mass. For bodies of appreciable See also:size or even for those as small as ordinary atoms the effect of any realizable electric charge is quite insignificant, on the other See also:hand for the smallest bodies known, the corpuscle, there is evidence that the whole of the mass is due to the electric charge. This result has been deduced by the help of an extremely interesting property of the mass due to a charge of electricity, which is that this mass is not See also:constant but varies with the velocity. This comes about in the following way. When the charged particle, which for simplicity we shall suppose to be spherical, is at See also:rest or moving very slowly the lines of electric force are distributed uniformly around it in all directions; when the sphere moves, however, magnetic forces are produced in the region around it, while these, in consequence of electro-magnetic See also:induction in a moving magnetic field, give rise to electric forces which displace the tubes of electric force in such a way as to make them set themselves so as to be more at right angles to the direction in which they are moving than they were before. Thus if the charged sphere were moving along the See also:line AB, the tubes of force would, when the sphere was in motion, tend to leave the region near AB and See also:crowd towards a See also:plane through the centre of the sphere and at right angles to AB, where they would be moving more nearly at right angles to themselves. This crowding of the lines of force increases, however, the potential energy of the electric field, and since the mass of the ether carried along by the lines of force is proportional to the potential energy, the mass of the charged particle will also be increased. The amount of variation of the mass with the velocity depends to some extent on the assumptions we make as to the shape of the corpuscle and the way in which it is electrified. The simplest expression connecting the mass with the velocity is that when the velocity is v the mass is equal to a Me- I z where c is the velocity of light. We see from aa1 v' I this that the variation of mass with velocity is very small unless the velocity of the body approaches that of light, but when, as in the case of the (3 particles emitted by radium, the velocity is only a few per cent. less than that of light, the effect of velocity on the mass becomes very considerable; the See also:formula indicates that if the particles were moving with a velocity equal to that of light they would behave as if their mass were infinite. By observing the variation in the mass of a corpuscle as its velocity changes we can determine how much of the mass depends upon the electric charge and how much is See also:independent of it. For since the latter part of the mass is independent of the velocity, if it predominates the variation with velocity of the mass of a corpuscle will be small; if on the other hand it is negligible the variation in mass with velocity will be that indicated by theory given above. The experiment of See also:Kaufmann . (See also:Gottingen Nach., Nov. 8, roof), Bucherer (See also:Ann. der Physik., See also:xxviii. 513, 1909) on the masses of the /3 particles shot out by radium, as well as those by Hupka (Berichte der See also:deutsch. physik. Gesell., 1909, p• 249) on the masses of the corpuscle in cathode rays are in agreement with the view that the whole of the mass of these particles is due to their electric charge. The alteration in the mass of a moving charge with its velocity is primarily due to the increase in the potential energy which accompanies the increase in velocity. The connexion between potential energy and mass is See also:general and holds for any arrangement of electrified particles; thus if we assume the electrical constitution of matter, there will be a part of the mass of any system dependent upon the potential energy and in fact proportional to it. Thus every change in potential energy, such for example as occurs when two elements combine with See also:evolution or absorption of See also:heat, must be attended by a change in mass. The amount of this change can be calculated by the See also:rule that if a mass equal to the change in mass were to move with the velocity of light its kinetic energy would equal the change in the potential energy. If we apply this result to the case of the See also:combination of hydrogen and oxygen, where the evolution of heat, about 1.6 X ron ergs per gramme of water, is greater than in any other known case of chemical combination, we see that the change in mass would only amount to one part in 3000 million, which is far beyond the reach of experiment. The evolution of energy by radio-active substances is enormously larger than in ordinary chemical transformations; thus one gramme of radium emits per See also:day about as much energy as is evolved in the formation of one gramme of water, and goes on doing this for thousands of years. We see, however, that even in this case it would require hundreds of years before the changes in mass became appreciable. The evolution of energy from the gaseous See also:emanation given off by radium is more rapid than that from radium itself, since according to the experiments of See also:Rutherford (Rutherford, Radio-activity, p. 432) a gramme of the emanation would evolve about 2.1X roil ergs in four days; this by the rule given above would diminish the mass by about one part in 20,000; but since only very small quantities of the emanation could be used the detection of the change of mass does not seem feasible even in this case. On the view we have been discussing the existence of potential energy due to an electric field is always associated with mass; wherever there is potential energy there is mass. On the electro-magnetic theory of light, however, a See also:wave of light is accompanied by electric forces, and therefore by potential energy; thus waves of light must behave as if they possessed mass. It may be shown that it follows from the same principles that they must also possess momentum, the direction of the momentum being the direction along which the light is travelling; when the light is absorbed by an opaque substance the momentum in the light is communicated to the substance, which therefore behaves as if the light pressed upon it. The pressure exerted by light was shown by See also:Maxwell (Electricity and See also:Magnetism, 3rd ed., p. 440) to be a consequence of his electro-magnetic theory, its existence has been established by the experiment of Lebedew, of See also:Nichols and See also:Hull, and of Poynting. We have hitherto been considering mass from the point of view that the constitution of matter is electrical; we shall proceed to consider the question of weight from the same weight. point of view. The relation between mass and weight is, while the simplest in expression, perhaps the most fundamental and mysterious property possessed by matter. The weight of a body is proportional to its mass, that is if the weights of a number of substances are equal the masses will be equal, whatever the substances may be. This result was verified to a considerable degree of approximation by See also:Newton by means of experiments with pendulums; later, in 1830 See also:Bessel by a very extensive and accurate See also:series of experiments, also made on pendulums, showed that the ratio of mass to weight was certainly to one part in 60,000 the same for all the substances examined by him, these included See also:brass, See also:silver, See also:iron, See also:lead, See also:copper, See also:ivory, water. The constancy of this ratio acquires new See also:interest when looked at from the point of view of the electrical constitution of matter. We have seen that the atoms of all bodies contain corpuscles, that the mass of a corpuscle is only of the mass of an atom of hydrogen, that it carries a constant charge of negative electricity, and that its mass is entirely due to this charge, and can be regarded as arising from ether gripped by the lines of force starting from the electrical charge. The question at once suggests itself, Is this kind of mass ponderable? does it add to the weight of the body? and, if so, is the proportion between mass and weight the same as for ordinary bodies? Let us suppose for a moment that this mass is not ponderable, so that the corpuscles increase the mass but not the weight of an atom. Then, since the mass of a corpuscle is -ibu of that of an atom of hydrogen, the addition or removal of one corpuscle would in the case of an atom of atomic weight x alter the mass by one part in I700 x, without altering the weight, this would produce an effect of the same magnitude on the ratio of mass to weight and would in the case of the atoms of the lighter elements be easily measurable in experiments of the same order of accuracy as those made by Bessel. If the number of corpuscles in the atom were proportional to the atomic weight, then the ratio of mass to weight would be constant whether the corpuscles were ponderable or not. If the number were not proportional there would be greater discrepancies in the ratio of mass to weight than is consistent with Bessel's experiments if the corpuscles had no weight. We have seen there are other grounds for concluding that the number of corpuscles in an atom is proportional to the atom weight, so that the constancy of the ratio of mass to weight for a large number of substances does not enable us to determine whether or not mass due to charges of electricity is ponderable or not. There seems some See also:hope that the determination of this ratio for radio-active substances may throw some light on this point. The enormous amount of heat evolved by these bodies may indicate that they possess much greater stores of potential energy than other substances. If we suppose that the heat See also:developed by one gramme of a radio-active substance in the transformations which it undergoes before it reaches the nonradio-active See also:stage is a measure of the excess of the potential energy in a gramme of this substance above that in a gramme of non-radio-active substance, it would follow that a larger part of the mass was due to electric charges in radio-active than in non-radio-active substances; in the case of uranium this difference would amount to at least one part in 20,000 of the total mass. If this extra mass had no weight the ratio of mass to weight for uranium would differ from the normal amount by more than one part in 20,000, a quantity quite within the range of pendulum experiments. It thus appears very desirable to make experiments on the ratio of mass to weight for radio-active substances. Sir J. J. Thomson, by swinging a small pendulum whose bob was made of radium bromide, has shown that this ratio for radium does not differ from the normal by one part in 2000. The small quantity of radium available prevented the attainment of greater accuracy. Experiments just completed (191o) by Southerns at the See also:Cavendish Laboratory on this ratio for uranium show that it is normal to an accuracy of one part in 200,000; indicating that in non-radio-active, as in radio-active, substances the electrical mass is proportional to the atomic weight. Though but few experiments have been made in recent years on the value of the ratio of mass to weight, many important investigations have been made on the effect of alterations in the chemical and physical conditions on the weight of bodies. These have all led to the conclusion that no change which can be detected by our present means of investigation occurs in the weight of a body in consequence of any physical or chemical changes yet investigated. Thus Landolt, who devoted a -great number of years to the question whether any change in weight occurs during chemical combination, came finally to the conclusion that in no case out of the many he investigated did any measurable change of weight occur during chemical combination. Poynting and See also:Phillips (Prot. See also:Roy. See also:Soc., 76, p. 445), as well as Southerns (78, p.392), have shown that change in temperature produces no change in the weight of a body; and Poynting has also shown that neither the weight of a crystal nor the attraction between two crystals depends at all upon the direction in which the See also:axis of the crystal points. The result of these laborious and very carefully made experiments has been to strengthen the conviction that the weight of a given portion of matter is absolutely independent of its physical See also:condition or state of chemical combinations. It should, however, be noticed that we have as yet no accurate investigation as to whether or not any changes of weight occur during radio-active transformations, such for example as the emanation from radium undergoes when the atoms themselves of the substance are disrupted. It is a matter of some interest in connexion with a discussion of any views of the constitution of matter to consider the theories of See also:gravitation which have been put forward to explain that apparently invariable property of matter—its weight. It wouldbe impossible to consider in detail the numerous theories which have been put forward to See also:account for gravitation; a concise See also:summary of many of these has been given by Drude (Wied. Ann. 62, p. 0:1 there is no dearth of theories as to the cause of gravitation, what is lacking is the means of putting any of them to a decisive test. There are, however, two theories of gravitation, both old, which seem to be especially closely connected with the idea of the electrical constitution of matter. The first of these is the theory, associated with the two fluid theory of electricity, that gravity is a kind of residual electrical effect, due to the attraction between the units of positive and negative electricity being a little greater than the repulsion between the units of electricity of the same kind. Thus on this view two charges of equal magnitude, but of opposite sign, would exert an attraction varying inversely as the square of the distance on a charge of electricity of either sign, and therefore an attraction on a system consisting of two charges equal in magnitude but opposite in sign forming an electrically neutral system. Thus if we had two neutral systems, A and B, A consisting of m positive units of electricity and an equal number of negative, while B has n units of each kind, then the gravitational attraction between A and B would be inversely proportional to the square of the distance and proportional to n m. The connexion between this view of gravity and that of the electrical constitution of matter is evidently very See also:close, for if gravity arose in this way the weight of a body would only depend upon the number of units of electricity in the body. On the view that the constitution of matter is electrical, the fundamental units which build up matter are the units of electric charge, and as the magnitude of these charges does not change, whatever chemical or physical vicissitudes matter, the weight of matter ought not to be affected by such changes. There is one result of this theory which might possibly afford a means of testing it: since the charge on a corpuscle is equal to that on a positive unit, the weights of the two are equal; but the mass of the corpuscle is only 1-7 -o- of that of the positive unit, so that the See also:acceleration of the corpuscle under gravity will be 1700 times that of the positive unit, which we should expect to be the same as that for ponderable matter or 981. The acceleration of the corpuscle under gravity on this view would be s•6Xsos. It does not seem altogether impossible that with methods slightly more powerful than those we now possess we might measure the effect of gravity on a corpuscle if the acceleration were as large as this. The other theory of gravitation to which we See also:call See also:attention is that due to Le See also:Sage of See also:Geneva and published in 1818. Le Sage supposed that the universe was thronged with exceedingly small particles moving with very great velocities. These particles he called ultra-mundane corpuscles, because they came to us from regions far beyond the See also:solar system. He assumed that these were so penetrating that they could pass through masses as large as the See also:sun or the See also:earth without being absorbed to more than a very small extent. There is, however, some absorption, and if bodies are made up of the same kind of atoms, whose dimensions are small compared with the distances between them, the absorption will be proportional to the mass of the body. So that as the ultra-mundane corpuscles stream through the body a small fraction, proportional to the mass of the body, of their momentum is communicated to it. If the direction of the ultra-mundane corpuscles passing through the body were uniformly distributed, the momentum communicated by them to the body would not tend to move it in one direction rather than in another, so that a body, A, alone in the universe and exposed to See also:bombardment by the ultra-mundane corpuscles would remain at rest. If, however, there were a second body, B, in the neighbourhood of A, B will See also:shield A from some of the corpuscles moving in the direction BA; thus A will not receive as much momentum in this direction as when it was alone; but in this case it only received just enough to A theory published after Drude's See also:paper in that of See also:Professor See also:Osborne See also:Reynolds, given in his Rede lecture " On an See also:Inversion of Ideas as to the Structure of the Universe." keep it in equilibrium, so that when B is present the momentum in the opposite direction will get the upper hand and A will move in the direction AB, and will thus be attracted by B. Similarly, we see that B will be attracted by A. Le Sage proved that the See also:rate at which momentum was being communicated to A or B by the passage through them of his corpuscles was proportional to the product of the masses of A and B, and if the distance between A and B was large compared with their dimensions, inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them; in fact, that the forces acting on them would obey the same See also:laws as the gravitational attraction between them. Clerk Maxwell (See also:article " ATOM," Ency. Brit., 9th ed.) pointed out that this transference of momentum from the ultra-mundane corpuscles to the body through which they passed involved the loss of kinetic energy by the corpuscles, and if the loss of momentum were large enough to account for the gravitational attraction, the loss of kinetic energy would be so large that if converted into heat it would be sufficient to keep the body See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] MATSYS (MASSYS or METZYS), QUINTIN (1466-1530) |
[next] MATTERHORN |