Spencer  Heath Archive

Item 470

Penciling on lined, notepad paper

No date

 

 

 

A Theory of Wave Motion or Propagation

 

Energy waves are propagated from peripheral sources or surfaces. Whether their motion be rectilinear like that of sound waves or transverse like light waves, their propagation, except as they may be deflected or reflected, is always radial, and their velocity measured in that direction.

Each wave therefore is or occupies, geometrically speaking, a spherical “shell,” whose outer radius increases by one wave length with each successive wave. The theory here presented is illustrated by reference to the radiations that emanate from the surface of an incandescent element. A lump or particle of the given element, sodium for example, composed of myriad atoms is assumed to be affected by an inflow of external energy — a flow of electrons, let us say, and that this energy inflow gives rise to the waves that issue and radiate from the incandescent lump. It is further supposed, according to current theory, that each atom of the lump consists of a nucleus of protons in balance electrically with peripheral electrons and that each electron is not so much a particle as it is a region of action or energy surrounding and enclosing the nucleus in the manner of a globular envelope or shell. For sake of directness and brevity the theory here proposed will be set out in positive instead of the perhaps more appropriate suppositious terms:

 

The invading electrons, moving as particles, penetrate each atom’s outer electron. The positive nuclear resistance thus encountered causes the invading electron first to flatten then spread out evenly and surround and enclose the nucleus inside of the outer electron that as a particle it pierced. This electron, being ruptured and displaced by the invader shrinks from its enveloping form into that of a particle displaced and thrown off from its former atomic structure by its own inertia, there being insufficient protons in the nucleus to balance both the invader and it. This displacement of electrons taking place in large numbers of atoms releases from the incandescent body myriad free electrons as particles in rapid motion surrounding it. This more or less globular envelope of free electrons, being all of them of positive charge, are mutually repellent. Under this repulsion the envelope expands. Each electron particle finds itself moving progressively and rapidly farther and farther away from the atom from which it was torn and displaced. As the invading energy continues to drive off the atomic electrons these move outwardly as a succession of particles but they have no direct radial impulsion and thus do not proceed directly with simple radial motion as a corpuscular stream. Instead of proceeding radially with a rectilinear motion, they transform themselves into radiant energy as undulatory radial waves. Of this transformation the following explanation is proposed:

 

Upon displacement from their respective atoms each electron, as particle, has a velocity appropriate to its mass and charge. Thus each electron coming from the same kind of atom (such as sodium, for example) has the same velocity. But they do not have the same direction. In this they are highly diverse. Their motion with respect to one another is random, like the motions of molecules in a gas, but since they are all of the same negative charge they repel each other and cannot collide. Under their several constant velocities in diverse directions…

 

                                               /Breaks off/