Electrical theory of matter

Powerful as the theory of photons has proved itself, and deeply as the statistical method permits us to penetrate into the nature of radiation, there are aspects of the subject which can only be understood in terms of the electrical theory of matter and of the electromagnetic theory of light. The introduction of the electrical theme cannot be much longer deferred. 

These extraordinary facts can be expressed in terms of the properties of the wave function tp, but before the discussion is carried farther it is necessary to assemble a whole series of results. It is only in the light of developments proceeding from the electrical theory of matter that the necessary ideas become intelligible (see p. 193). 

Anyone who has sought in chemistry a road to the understanding of everyday things will probably have been impressed by the apparent gulf separating the substances with which simple chemical experiments are done in the laboratory and the materials of which the ordinary world seems largely to be made. Trees, rocks, aUoys, and many other common objects and substances are of evident complexity, and this is not aU even the simpler chemical bodies seem to be extraordinarily diverse, and the problem of their classification is a formidable one. Among the major questions of physical chemistry is that of the connexion between the electrical theory of matter, the kinetic theory, quantum mechanical and statistical principles, and the forms assumed by the various systems accessible to normal experience. 

While it is not possible to predict behaviour in each individual example, the reasons for this general classification and the trend in character through the periodic system are explicable in terms of the electrical theory of matter. 

It may be remarked that there is no call for an atomic theory of energy, analogous to the atomic theories of matter and electricity, as the discontinuity arises from the peculiar character of the system (cf. Planck, 45, 5, 1912). 

William B. Jensen begins the volume with an overview of scientific atomic theories from the 17 through 20 centuries. He mentions ancient atomism, but he begins in earnest analyzing corpuscular theories of matter proposed or entertained by natural philosophers in the 17 century. He describes the dominant flavors of atomic notions over fom centuries, from the mechanical through the dynamical, gravimetric, and kinetic, to the electrical. Jensen is Oesper Professor of Chemical Education and History of Chemistry at the University of Cincirmati and was the foimding editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. 

In autumn 1921, shortly after Polanyi joined the staff of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Haber invited Polanyi to give a full account of adsorption theory at Haber s colloquium. [15] The result was considerable criticism from both Haber and Albert Einstein, who faulted Polanyi for disregarding in his lecture the new electrical theories of the structure of matter. Polanyi later said, professionally, I survived the... 

In the theory of electric properties of molecular systems in degenerate electronic states some unsolved problems remain. First, the problem of intermolecular interactions considering the degeneracy of the electronic states of the interacting molecules has not been solved completely. In this case, besides the lowering of the multipolarity of the interaction described in this paper, one can expect an essential contribution of anisotropic induction and dispersion interactions to different virial correction to the equations of state, refraction, and other electric characteristics of matter. 

Boyle, Robert. (1627-1691). A native of Ireland, Boyle devoted his life to experiments in what was then called natural philosophy, i.e., physical science. He was influenced early by Galileo. His interest aroused by a pump that had just been invented, Boyle studied the properties of air, on which he wrote a treatise (1660). Soon thereafter, he stated the famous law that bears his name (see following entry). Boyle s group of scientific enthusiasts was known as the invisible college , and in 1663 it became the Royal Society of London. Boyle was one of the first to apply the principle that Francis Bacon had described as the new method —namely, inductive experimentation as opposed to the deductive method of Aristotle—and this became and has remained the cornerstone of scientific research. Boyle also investigated hydrostatics, desalination of seawater, crystals, electricity, etc. He approached but never quite stated the atomic theory of matter however, he did distinguish between compounds and mixtures and conceived the idea of particles becoming associated to form molecules. 

The statistical-mechanical methods are, however, currently used for a body of related problems, which concern the optical and electrical properties of matter. We mention, e.g., the theories of the dielectric constant by Yvon, Kirkwood, Brown, de Boer et the theory of the index of refraction by Yvon, and... 

Stlliman Lectures, 1903 Phil. Mag., 1904, vii, 237 1906, xi, 769 Electricity and Matter, 1904 The Corpuscular Theory of Matter, 1907 Rays of Positive Electricity, 1913, 2 ed. 1921 The Atomic Theory. The Romanes Lecture, Oxford, 1914 The Electron in Chemistry (Franklin Institute Lectures), 1923 see Hardin, Science, 1916, xliv, 655 (hist, of atomic structure). 

Faraday seems to have been reluctant to emphasise this quantitative relationship. For him this was not yet a law of nature, for laws were special, not to be lightly enunciated, and in the case of quantitative laws difficult to establish by experiment because there might always be exceptions. All his earlier discoveries -electro-magnetic rotations, induction and the dynamo etc - had been qualitative effects where it was possible to demonstrate these phenomena and thus make them accessible to an audience in such a way that they would accept the visible experimental reasoning. He had departed from this with the identity of electricities, as he had had to resort in many cases to using the experiments of others to establish this result. In his electro-chemical work Faraday had to make more departures from what had been his normal practice. He had proposed a quantitative relationship, a new theory of electrochemical action and a theory of matter to support this - things which Faraday had never done before as a mature scientist. As I... 

What we can say now is that Faraday s electro-chemical work was intimately related to his electrical work and was not something separable from it. We can also say that the first law of electrochemistry emerged naturally from his experiments and that he checked very carefully and very minutely that this quantitative relationship was in fact a real law of nature. Faraday had also to develop a theory of matter, at least initially, to cope with interpreting his work, with the wealth of discoveries he was making at this period. 

Some of the electrical properties of matter (Section 2.7) were known in Dalton s day, but there was no explanation for them. Dalton s theory did not account for them. Faraday and Crookes opened the door that led to understanding electricity in terms of parts of atoms. 

When a property of matter exists in discrete amounts, we say the property is quantized. For example, in accord with the atomic theory of matter, mass is quantized. Solid iron, liquid water, gaseous hydrogen are not continuous they are composed of atoms or molecules and therefore their mass is quantized. Electricity in Dalton s time was regarded as a continuous fluid. However, this assumption could not survive when confronted by the new discoveries of the nineteenth century. 

An almost forgotten issue is the proposed relativistic nature of an electron as elucidated by Lorentz. The electron was seen as a flexible spherical unit of charge which distorts as it contracts in the direction of any motion. To account for the relativistic contraction of macroscopic bodies Lorentz further assumed that the electrical forces which bind atoms together were essentially states of stress and strain in the aether. Countless prominent scientists have expressed similar views without trying to develop a coherent theory of matter. The Lorentz electron model antedates de Broglie s postulate of matter waves and the development... 

A diagrannnatic approach that can unify the theory underlymg these many spectroscopies is presented. The most complete theoretical treatment is achieved by applying statistical quantum mechanics in the fonn of the time evolution of the light/matter density operator. (It is recoimnended that anyone interested in advanced study of this topic should familiarize themselves with density operator fonnalism [8, 9, 10, H and f2]. Most books on nonlinear optics [13,14, f5,16 and 17] and nonlinear optical spectroscopy [18,19] treat this in much detail.) Once the density operator is known at any time and position within a material, its matrix in the eigenstate basis set of the constituents (usually molecules) can be detennined. The ensemble averaged electrical polarization, P, is then obtained—tlie centrepiece of all spectroscopies based on the electric component of the EM field. 

Equations (10.17) and (10.18) show that both the relative dielectric constant and the refractive index of a substance are measurable properties of matter that quantify the interaction between matter and electric fields of whatever origin. The polarizability is the molecular parameter which is pertinent to this interaction. We shall see in the next section that a also plays an important role in the theory of light scattering. The following example illustrates the use of Eq. (10.17) to evaluate a and considers one aspect of the applicability of this quantity to light scattering. 

Classical and Quantum Mechanics. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a revolution was brewing in the world of physics. For hundreds of years, the Newtonian laws of mechanics had satisfactorily provided explanations and supported experimental observations in the physical sciences. However, the experimentaUsts of the nineteenth century had begun delving into the world of matter at an atomic level. This led to unsatisfactory explanations of the observed patterns of behavior of electricity, light, and matter, and it was these inconsistencies which led Bohr, Compton, deBroghe, Einstein, Planck, and Schrn dinger to seek a new order, another level of theory, ie, quantum theory. 

The first theoretical attempts in the field of time-resolved X-ray diffraction were entirely empirical. More precise theoretical work appeared only in the late 1990s and is due to Wilson et al. [13-16]. However, this theoretical work still remained preliminary. A really satisfactory approach must be statistical. In fact, macroscopic transport coefficients like diffusion constant or chemical rate constant break down at ultrashort time scales. Even the notion of a molecule becomes ambiguous at which interatomic distance can the atoms A and B of a molecule A-B be considered to be free Another element of consideration is that the electric field of the laser pump is strong, and that its interaction with matter is nonlinear. What is needed is thus a statistical theory reminiscent of those from time-resolved optical spectroscopy. A theory of this sort was elaborated by Bratos and co-workers and was published over the last few years [17-19]. 

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