SIDELIGHTS ON RELATIVITY

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relation to each other; it was also at variance with the result of
Fizeau's important experiment on the velocity of the propagation
of light in moving fluids, and with other established experimental
results.

Such was the state of things when H. A. Lorentz entered upon the
scene. He brought theory into harmony with experience by means of
a wonderful simplification of theoretical principles. He achieved
this, the most important advance in the theory of electricity since
Maxwell, by taking from ether its mechanical, and from matter its
electromagnetic qualities. As in empty space, so too in the interior
of material bodies, the ether, and not matter viewed atomistically,
was exclusively the seat of electromagnetic fields. According to
Lorentz the elementary particles of matter alone are capable of
carrying out movements; their electromagnetic activity is entirely
confined to the carrying of electric charges. Thus Lorentz succeeded
in reducing all electromagnetic happenings to Maxwell's equations