Ancient and Modern Physics, Thomas E. Willson [novels to read in english TXT] 📗

to make the physical unit" is the correct definition of an atom. The prakritic physical atom has length, breadth and thickness. And it has an atmosphere of ether which not only interpenetrates the atom as oxygen and hydrogen interpenetrate the drop of water, but furnishes it with an envelope as the oxygen and hydrogen furnish the drop of water with one.

Each physical atom is the centre of an etheric molecule composed of many etheric atoms vibrating at a greater or lesser speed and interpenetrating the atom. Each may be considered a miniature earth, with its aerial envelope, the air, penetrating all parts of it.

The etheric plane of matter not only unites with this prakritic plane through the atom but it interpenetrates all combinations of it; beside the atom as well as through the atom. The grain of sand composed of many prakritic atoms is also composed of many times that number of etheric atoms. The grain of sand is etheric matter as well as prakritic matter. It exists on the etheric plane exactly the same as it exists on the prakritic, and it has etheric form as well as prakritic form.

As each atom of this physical world of ours—whether of land, or water, or air; whether of solid, liquid or gas—is the centre of an etheric molecule, we have two worlds, not one: a physical world and an etheric one; a visible world and an invisible world; a tangible world and an intangible world; a world of effect and a world of cause.

And each animal, including man, is made in the same way. He has a prakritic body and an etheric body; a visible body and an invisible body; an earthly body and one "not made with hands," in common touch with the whole universe.

Chapter Four

What a Teacher Should Teach

Let us suppose that a certain wise teacher of physics places a row of Bunsen burners under a long steel bar having a Daniell's pyrometer at one end, and addresses his class (substantially) as follows:

"At our last lecture we found that the matter of the universe permeated all space, but in two conditions, which we agreed to call physical and etheric, or tangible and intangible. It is all the same matter, subject to the same laws, but differing in the rate of vibration, the physical matter vibrating through one great octave or plane, and the etheric vibrating through another great octave or plane one degree higher—the chording vibration of the matter of the two planes in one note producing what we call energy or force, and with it phenomena.

"This is a bar of steel 36 inches long. It is composed of physical atoms but no two physical atoms touch. Each physical atom is as far apart from every other atom as the stars in heaven from one another—in proportion to their size. The atoms and the spaces between them are so small to our sight that they seem to touch. If we had a microscope of sufficient power to reveal the atom, you would see that no two atoms touch, and that the spaces between them are, as Faraday says, very great in proportion to their size. I showed you last term that what appeared to be a solid stream of water, when magnified and thrown upon a screen, was merely a succession of independent drops that did not touch. I can not yet give you proof of the bar of iron being composed of independent atoms, but that is the fault of our instruments, and you must take my word for it until the proof is simplified and made easy of application.

"Each one of these physical atoms is a miniature world. It is the center of an ocean of ether, composed of many atoms; and while no two physical atoms touch, their etheric atmospheres do touch, and any change in the vibration of the etheric atmosphere of one will be imparted to that of the next. As the vibration of the physical atom must be in harmony with that of its etheric atmosphere, any change coming to one will be imparted to the next, and the next, through the ether surrounding them.

"You can see that the index at the end of the bar has moved, showing that it is now longer. That means the etheric atoms are now vibrating faster, taking more space, and have necessarily forced each physical atom farther apart. The bar is not only longer, but softer, and as the vibrations increase in rapidity the time will come when it will bend by its own weight, and even when it will become a liquid and a gas.

"If you put your hand anywhere near the bar you will feel a sensation called heat, and say it has become hot. The reason for that is that you are in actual and literal touch with the bar or iron through the ether. It is not alone each atom of the bar of iron that is surrounded by the ether, but each atom of the air, and each atom of your body. Their etheric atmospheres are all touching, and the increase in the vibration of the ether surrounding the atoms of iron is imparted to those of the air surrounding it, and these in turn raise the rate of vibration in the etheric atoms surrounding the physical atoms of your hand. This rate of vibration in your nerves causes a sensation, or mental impression, you call "heat." Consciousness of it comes through your sense of touch; but after all it is merely a "rate of vibration" which your brain recognizes and names.

"The bar has now reached a temperature of about 700 degrees, and has become a dull red. Why do you say the color has changed, and why do you say red?

"Because the rate of vibration of the etheric atoms in the bar is now about 412 trillions per second, and this rate of vibration having been imparted to the ether of the air, has in turn been imparted to the ether of your eye, and this rate of vibration in the ether of the nerves of your eye your brain recognizes and calls 'red.'

"The heat still continues and increases. You now have both heat and light. So you see that the ether is not vibrating in a single note, but in two chording notes, producing light and heat. There are two kinds of ether around the iron atom. There is sound also, but the note is too high for one's ears. It is a chord of three notes.

"Professor Silliman, of Yale, discovered over twenty years ago, that the ether could be differentiated into the luminiferous, or light ether, and the sonoriferous, or sound ether.

"Other great scientists since then have found a third ether—the heat ether.

"Their discoveries show that the atmospheric etheric envelope of each etheric atom is made up of etheric atoms of different vibratory powers. As the atmosphere of the earth is made up of atoms of oxygen and nitrogen and argon, so that of an atom is made up of three kinds of ethers, corresponding to three of our senses. That it consists of five ethers, corresponding to our five senses, as the ancient Hindus assert—who can say?

"I mention this subject of the differentiation of the ether merely that you may not suppose that the ether is a simple substance. For the present we will treat it as a simple substance, but next year we will take it up as a compound one.

"This steel bar before you is not one bar, but two bars. There is a visible bar and an invisible bar, the visible bar being made of physical atoms, and the invisible bar of etheric atoms. The etheric bar is invisible, but it is made of matter, the same as the visible bar, and it is just as real, just as truly a bar as the one we see.

"More than this. The etheric, invisible bar is the source and cause of all phenomena connected with the bar. It is the real bar, and the one we see is merely the shadow in physical matter of a real bar. In shape, strength, color, in short, in everything, it depends on the invisible one. The invisible dominates, governs, disposes. The visible is merely its attendant shadow, changing as the invisible, etheric bar changes, and recording for our senses these invisible changes.

"The invisible change always comes first; the invisible phenomena invariably precede the visible.

"In all this physical world—in all this universe—there is
nothing, not even a grain of sand or an atom of hydrogen, that is
not as this bar of iron is—the shadow cast on a visible world
by the unknown and mysterious work of an invisible world.

"Land or water, mountain or lake, man or beast, bird or reptile, cold or heat, light or darkness, all are the reflection in physical matter of the true and real thing in the invisible and intangible world about us. "If we have a visible body we have an invisible one also," said Saint Paul. Modern science has proven he was right, and that it is the invisible body which is the real body.

"If this earth and all that it is composed of—land or ocean or air; man or beast; pyramid or pavement—could be resolved into the physical atoms composing everything in it or on it created by God or man, each atom of this dust would be identical physically. There would not be one kind of atom for iron and another for oxygen.

"The differentiation between what are called elementary substances is first made apparent in the molecule or first combination of the atoms. It is not in the atom itself, unless it be in the size, as may not be improbable. The atoms combine in different numbers to make differently shaped molecules, and it is from this difference in the shape of the molecule that we get the difference between gold and silver, copper and tin, or oxygen and hydrogen.

"In all chemical compounds, such as water and alcohol, the molecules at the base of the two or more substances break up into their original atoms and form a new molecule composed of all the atoms in the two or more things combined. To make this chemical combination we must change the rate of vibration of one or the other or both until they strike a common chord. As we saw last term, oxygen and hydrogen have different specific heats, and no two other elements have the same specific heat, while heat raises the rate of vibration. Any given amount of heat raises the vibration of one more than another. Apply heat, and the rate of one will rise faster than that of the other until they reach a common chord. Then they fall apart and recombine.

"If we pass a current of electricity through this sealed jar containing oxygen and hydrogen in mechanical union, the spark that leaps across the points furnishes the heat, and a drop of water appears and falls to the bottom. A large portion of the gases has disappeared. It has been converted into water. What is left of the gases will expand and fill the bottle.

"The drop of water but for local causes, but for a certain attraction of the earth, would float in the centre of the jar at the centre of gravity, as the earth does in space. But the centre of gravity of the two bodies is far within the earth, and the drop gets as close to it as it can. The earth's 'pull' takes it to the bottom. If the jar were far enough away in space the drop would float, as the earth floats, at a point where all pulls balance, and the drop of water would have enough pull of its own, enough gravity within itself to hold all the gas left in the jar to itself as an atmosphere. It would be a centre of energy, a minature world.

"The drop of water is not a homogenous mass. About one third of the bulk of the drop of water is made up of independent oxygen and hydrogen atoms interspersed through it, as any liquid is through this piece of blotting paper. And it has, and keeps, by its own attraction, an atmosphere of the gas. Each molecule of water has a thin layer, or skin, of the gas; even as it