Abstract
THIRTY years ago Clerk Maxwell gave in this plaie a remarkable address on “Action at a Distance. It is reported in the Journal of the institution, vol. vii., and to it I would direct attention. Most natural philosophers hold, and have held, that action at a distance across empty space is impossible; in other words, that matter cannot act where it is not, but only where it is. The question, “Where is it?” is a further question that may demand attention and require more than a superficial answer. For it can be argued on the hydrodynamic or vortex theory of matter, as well as on the electrical theory, that every atom of matter has a universal, though nearly infinitesimal, prevalence, and extends everywhere, since there is no definite sharp boundary or limiting periphery to the region disturbed by its existence. The lines of force of an isolated electric charge extend throughout illimitable space: and though a charge of opposite sign will curve and concentrate them, yet it is possible to deal with both charges, by the method of superposition, as if they each existed separately without the other. In that case, therefore, however far they reach, such nuclei clearly exert no “action at a distance” in the technical sense.
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The Æther of Space 1 . Nature 79, 322–325 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/079322b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/079322b0