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On the Motion produced in an Infinite Elastic Solid by the Motion through the Space occupied by it of a body acting on it only by Attraction or Repulsion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
The title of the present communication describes a pure problem of abstract mathematical dynamics, without indication of any idea of a physical application. For a merely mathematical journal it might be suitable, because the dynamical subject is certainly interesting both in itself and in its relation to waves and vibrations. My reason for occupying myself with it, and for offering it to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, is that it suggests a conceivable explanation of the greatest difficulty hitherto presented by the undulatory theory of light; the motion of ponderable bodies through infinite space occupied by an elastic solid.
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- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1902
References
page 218 note * The so-called “electro-magnetic theory of light” does not cut away this foundation from the old undulatory theory of light. It adds to that primary theory an enormous province of transcendent interest and importance; it demands of us not merely an explanation of all the phenomena of light and radiant heat by transverse vibrations of an elastic solid called ether, but also the inclusion of electric currents, of the permanent magnetism of steel and lodestone, of magnetic force, and of electrostatic force, in a comprehensive ethereal dynamics.
page 225 note * That is to say, waves of transverse vibration, being the only kind of wave in an isotropio solid in which every part of the solid keeps its volume unchanged during the motion. See Phil. Mag., May, August, and October 1899.
page 234 note * I am forced to take this very large number instead of Maxwell's 19×1018, as I have found it otherwise impossible to reconcile the known viscosities and the known condensations of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen with Maxwell's theoretical formula 
where v is the Newtonian velocity of sound in the particular gas, and D is its diffusivity, that is, its viscosity divided by its density. It must be remembered that Avogadro's law makes N the same for all gases.
page 235 note * Phil. Mag., December 1887.
page 235 note † Public Lectures in Trinity College, Dublin.
page 235 note ‡ Versuch einer Theorie der electrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpen. Leiden, 1895.
page 235 note § This being the square of the ratio of the earth's velocity round the sun (30 kilometres per sec.) to the velocity of light (300,000 kilometres per sec.).