End of the century

End of the century

The theories regarding electricity were undergoing change at the end of the 19th Century. Indeed it may with truth be said that the trend of all scientific investigation now leads to the conclusion that matter in its final analysis is electrical in its nature — in fact is electricity; the theory upon which this view is based being termed the electronic theory, or the electric theory of matter.^[116] This theory (or better, hypothesis) in a word assumes that the atom of matter, so far from being indivisible, as assumed under the older theories, is made up of smaller bodies termed electrons, that these electrons are electrical in their nature, and consequently all matter ultimately is electrical, the atoms of the different elements of matter consisting of a certain number of electrons, e.g. 1 in the neutral hydrogen atom and 8 in the neutral oxygen atom. This theory of matter in several of its important features is not altogether one of a day, nor is it due to the researches of one man or to the conception of one mind. Thus, as regards the view that the atom is not an indivisible particle of matter, but is made up of numerous electrons, many scientists have for years held that all the elements are modifications of a single hypothetical substance, protyle,^[117] "the undifferentiated material of the universe." Nor is the theory entirely new in its assumption that all matter is electrical.^[13]

William Crookes

Oliver Heaviside

The electron as a unit of charge in electrochemistry was posited by G. Johnstone Stoney in 1874, who also coined the term electron in 1894. Plasma was first identified in a Crookes tube, and so described by Sir William Crookes in 1879 (he called it "radiant matter").^[118] The place of electricity in leading up to the discovery of those beautiful phenomena of the Crookes Tube (due to Sir William Crookes), viz., Cathode rays,^[119] and later to the discovery of Roentgen or X-rays, must not be overlooked, since without electricity as the excitant of the tube the discovery of the rays might have been postponed indefinitely. It has been noted herein that Dr. William Gilbert was termed the founder of electrical science. This must, however, be regarded as a comparative statement.^[13]
Oliver Heaviside was a self-taught scholar who reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis. His series of articles continued the work entitled "Electromagnetic Induction and its Propagation," commenced in The Electrician in 1885 to dearly 1887 (ed., the latter part of the work dealing with the propagation of electromagnetic waves along wires through the dielectric surrounding them), when the great pressure on space and the want of readers appeared to necessitate its abrupt discontinuance.^[120] (A straggler piece appeared December 31, 1887.) He wrote an interpretation of the transcendental formulae of electromagnetism. Following the real object of true naturalists^[121] when they employ mathematics to assist them, he wrote to find out the connections of known phenomena, and by deductive reasoning, to obtain a knowledge of electromagnetic phenomena. Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of mathematics and science for years to come.