Ill
INFLUENCE OF MOTION ON VARIOUS
PHENOMENA
OTWITHSTANDING its genuine physical
nature and properties, the etheris singularly
intangible and inaccessible to our senses, and ac-
cordingly is a subject on which it is extremely
difficult to try experiments. Many have been
the attempts to detect some phenomena de-
pending on its motion relative to the earth.
The earth is travelling round the sun at the rate
of 19 miles a second, and although this is slow
compared with light—being, in fact, just about
goxth of the speed of light—yet it would seem
feasible to observe some modification of optical
phenomena due to this motion through the ether.
And one such phenomenon is indeed known
—namely, the stellar aberration discovered by
Bradley in 1729. The position of objects not
on the earth, and not connected with the solar
system, is apparently altered by an amount
comparable to one part in ten thousand, by the
earth's motion; that is to say, the apparent place
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