Articles liés à Mathematical and Physical Papers, Volume 6
Présentation de l'éditeur
Lord Kelvin spublished scientific work. For convenience of reference a complete schedule of the volumes in which that work is contained is printed in front of this preface. At the time of the discovery of radioactivity, Lord Kelvin had been engaged for some years in investigations on the electrification of air (this volume pp. 1-64), in continuation of the early work on atmospheric electricity which is collected mainly in the Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism. The investigation of the conducting quality excited in gases by cathode and other rays formed a natural sequel to this work, and to the early investigations on the insulation of Electroscopes in which leakage through the air had not been suspected. Thus a large amount of attention was bestowed by Lord Kelvin, in conjunction with his pupils, on the phenomena of conduction excited in gases by Rontgen rays and by uranium. These researches soon developed into consideration of the voltaic equilibrium which is established between metals separated by a conducting gaseous medium, and into the general phenomena of contact electricity (pp. 110-149), and its thermodynamic relations (V ol. V. pp. 29-37). Some of the experimental detail in these connexions has now been superseded by improved methods and apparatus (cf. Sir J. J. Thomson streatise on The Conduction of Electricity in Gases), but for the sake of historical clearness it has been found desirable to reprint it practically in full. The same section also includes theoretical speculations on the nature of the decomposition of the molecules by radioactive agencies, in continuation of papers of this kind already reprinted in the Baltimore Lectures.
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