CHAPTER 5
MODERN MAGNETIC THEORY
We have already shown how the magnetism of a magnet is converted into electricity, by means of rotating coils cutting the lines of magnetic force in the “field.” The energy used to drive the machinery may, of course, be derived either from water-power or by steam. Gravity gives energy to falling water; chemical energy produced by the oxidation of coal becomes heat energy, which in turn causes the expansion of steam, which produces energy of motion in a piston; and this motion, transmitted to the parts of an engine to a dynamo, produces electrical energy. When the electric current from the dynamo has been conducted to any desired point by cables, another motor, acting in the opposite sense, causes the electricity to change back again into the original mechanical energy, less the loss due to imperfections in the operation. Here we have, then a clear picture of what is meant by the phrase, transformation of energy.
But another question naturally arises at this point. We know that with a finite quantity of magnetism we can produce an unlimited quantity of electricity. Yet we add no new material, no source of supply, to the dynamo. Let the rotating coils continue to cut the lines of magnetic force in the magnetic field, and the magnetism of the magnet will be transformed into current electricity—furnishing a literally exhaustless supply from the great storehouse of nature. For us the energy of the universe is infinite in quantity. The reservoir of energy is exhaustless, and the dynamo is man’s open sesame.
But just here the very interesting question arises: Is the inexhaustible supply of electric current with the expenditure of a limited quantity of magnetism fully explained by saying that it is due to the rotational movement of the coil? Can the mere rotation of a metal in a magnetic field actually create an endless supply of available energy? Not likely! As Dr. Gustave Le Bon well says: “Such a metamorphosis would be as marvelous as transformation of lead into gold by simply shaking it in a bottle. Another interpretation must be sought for the phenomenon.”
Now, a current of electricity is known to be a stream of electrons (negative charges) flowing along or in a conductor; and an electron is an atom of—energy. But where was this energy stored? “In the all-pervasive ether,” say many physicists. “There is no ether,” say others. The electromagnetic field represents energy storage in space—not in a universal, incomprehensible, paradoxical something called “ether.”
A field of energy is intelligible. It takes the place of the conception of action at a distance and of the ether. No “ether” need be postulated as the carrier of the field energy in space. It is its own carrier. “Energy is the only real existing entity, the primary conception, which exists for us because our senses respond to it” (Steinmetz).
“Lines of force,” says Dr. N. R. Campbell, the famous English physicist, “are just lines of force, independent for their existence of all surrounding bodies, and there is no more to be said about them.... Our Electrical theory, so far from providing additional support for the conception of the ether filling all space, does not require such a conception at all.”
Dr. Le Bon finds the exhaustless source of electricity in the interior of atoms. The atoms in one pound of earth contain enough energy to run all the factories, mills, railroads, etc., and light all the cities and villages of the United States, for a month, Steinmetz tells us. “It would,” he states further (“Relativity and Space,” Page 45), “supply the fuel for the biggest transatlantic liner for 300 trips from America to Europe and back. And if this energy of one pound of dirt could be let loose instantaneously, it would be equal in destructive powers to over a million tons of dynamite.”
From the above statement, we may well understand Dr. Le Bon’s interpretation of the work of a dynamo: “Matter being easily dissociated and constituting an immense reservoir of intra-atomic energy, it is enough to admit that the lines of force seized upon by the conducting body (the coils), which cuts them and causes them to flow in the form of an electric current, are constantly replaced at the expense of the intra-atomic energy. This latter being relatively almost inexhaustible, a single magnet can furnish an almost infinite number of lines of force.”
It can be shown that the kinetic energy of one kilogram (2.2 pounds) weight of matter is about 9000 millions of millions of kilogram-meters, or 25 thousand million kilowatt-hours (a kilowatt-hour = 1000 watt hours). This means, in other words, that the quantity of energy in the atoms of 2.2 pounds of ordinary matter is thousands of million times greater than the energy of an equal quantity of coal, released by chemical combustion.
Estimating the total energy consumed during the year on earth for heat, light, power, etc., as about 15 millions of millions (= 15,000,000,000,000) of kilowatt-hours, Steinmetz tells us that 600 kilograms, or less than two-thirds of a ton, of “dirt,” if it could be disintegrated into energy, would supply all the heat, light and energy demand of the whole earth for a year.
Several eminent physicists are now specializing on the problem of how to liberate and control intra-atomic energy for man’s uses—or abuses. Bearing in mind the present intellectual, moral and economic status of our “leaders of thought” and their followers, and remembering that one pound of common soil contains intra-atomic energy equal in destructive power to more than a million tons of dynamite, let us hope that the secret of releasing and “controlling” intra-atomic energy will not be discovered in our day and age.