applied to Electric Currents. 283
We know that the lines of force are affected by electric currents, and we know the distribution of those lines about a current; so that from the force we can determine the amount of the current. Assuming that our explanation of the lines of force by molecular vortices is correct, why does a particular distribution of vortices indicate an electric current? A satisfactory answer to this question would lead us a long way towards that of a very important one, "What is an electric current?"
I have found great difficulty in conceiving of the existence of vortices in a medium, side by side, revolving in the same direction about parallel axes. The contiguous portions of consecutive vortices must be moving in opposite directions; and it is difficult to understand how the motion of one part of the medium can coexist with, and even produce, an opposite motion of a part in contact with it.
The only conception which has at all aided me in conceiving of this kind of motion is that of the vortices being separated by a layer of particles, revolving each on its own axis in the opposite direction to that of the vortices, so that the contiguous surfaces of the particles and of the vortices have the same motion.
In mechanism, when two wheels are intended to revolve in the same direction, a wheel is placed between them so as to be in gear with both, and this wheel is called an "idle wheel." The hypothesis about the vortices which I have to suggest is that a layer of particles, acting as idle wheels, is interposed between each vortex and the next, so that each vortex has a tendency to make the neighbouring vortices revolve in the same direction with itself.
In mechanism, the idle wheel is generally made to rotate about a fixed axle; but in epicyclic trains and other contrivances, as, for instance, in Siemens's governor for steam-engines[1], we find idle wheels whose centres are capable of motion. In all these cases the motion of the centre is the half sum of the motions of the circumferences of the wheels between which it is placed. Let us examine the relations which must subsist between the motions of our vortices and those of the layer of particles interposed as idle wheels between them.
Prop. IV. — To determine the motion of a layer of particles separating two vortices.
Let the circumferential velocity of a vortex, multiplied by the three direction-cosines of its axis respectively, be α, β, γ, as in Prop. II. Let l, m, n be the direction-cosines of the normal to any part of the surface of this vortex, the outside of the surface being regarded positive. Then the components of the velocity of the particles of the vortex at this part of its surface will be
- ↑ See Goodeve's 'Elements of Mechanism,' p. 118.
