Aether and Matter. A Development of the Dynamical Relations of the Aether to Material Systems on the Basis of the Aromic Constitution of Matter. Including a Discussion fo the Influence of the Earth's Motion on Optical Phenomena. Being an Adams Prize Essay in the University of Cambridge. This item is unavailable.Aether and Matter. A Development of the Dynamical Relations of the Aether to Material Systems on the Basis of the Aromic Constitution of Matter. Including a Discussion fo the Influence of the Earth's Motion on Optical Phenomena. Being an Adams Prize Essay in the University of Cambridge

Original publisher's cloth, spine very slightly worn and sunned; over all a very good copy. First edition of Larmor's most important book on theoretical physics, the beginning of the electromagnetic theory of matter. Larmor developed his theory based upon a concept that matter consists entirely of electrons moving about in the aether according to electromagnetic laws. And electrons themselves were not material particles; "an electric point-charge is a nucleus of intrinsic strain in the aether." Electrons, he suggested, were freely mobile as opposed to a medium with a kind of elastic ("rotational") tangibility. Larmor's ideas were strikingly parallel to those which were published almost simultaneously by Lorentz. This ultimately became Larmor's famous version of the Lorentz transformation and the derivation of time dilation and length contraction. Larmor (1857-1942), raised in Ireland, was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. A physicist and mathematician, he made innovations in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter. "Larmor was first to give the formula for the rate of radiation of energy from an accelerated electron, and also to give an explanation of the effect of a magnetic field in splitting the lines of the spectrum into multiple lines, as discovered by Pieter Zeeman.".…