Abstract
THE electrical theory of dispersion is based on the hypotheses (1) that electric waves are due to motions of electric charges, and waves of light in particular to vibrations of charges inside the atom; and (2) that these vibrations are governed by linear equations. On this basis we obtain the usual dispersion formulæ, e.g. that of Drude:—where n is the refractive index for wave-length, h one of the free periods of a set of electrons in the atom, eh the charge, mh the mass, and Nh the number per c.c. of the electrons of the set, while the summation is for all possible free periods of the atom. In particular, if be greater than every one of the free wave-lengths of the atom, we get
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SCHOTT, G. A Fundamental Contradiction between the Electrical Theory of Dispersion and the Phenomena of Spectrum-Series . Nature 77, 413 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077413b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077413b0
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