By H. A. Lorentz (auth.)
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Extra info for Collected Papers: Volume VIII
Sample text
Numerous phenomena, in the first place those of photoelectricity, can hardly be understood if the energy of light waves is supposed to spread out indefinitely over greater and greater ') Presented at the meeting of the Franktin Instituteheld March 31, 1927. Journal of the Franktin Institute. 205, 449, 1928. HOW CAN ATOMS RADIATE? 29 spaces. It seems beyond doubt, that by such a diffusion the energy would soon become too dilute to eject an electron from an atom, for which adefinite amount of energy is required.
Now, the existence, in the spectrum of a gaseous body which is a chemical element, of a certain number of lines, clearly shows that, just as vibrating bodies of the kind I have mentioned, atoms of a definite constitution can send forth waves of different frequencies. It was natural to expect, here also, some numerical relation between the frequencies, and such a relation has really been brought to light; its form, however, is such that it has baffled all attempts to deduce it by considerations like those used in the theory of elasticity.
At some later instant it will be found in a shell of this thickness, bounded by two concentric spheres which both expand with the speed of light. By properly choosing the distribution of the disturbance in the initial sphere, you have it in your power to produce different distributions in the expanding shell, but you can never prevent the disturbance from ultimately occupying a very considerable part of the spherical wave. One might object that these are mostly theoretical inferences and that we must never swear by a theory, not even by MAXWELL's.