Note 8 — Chapter VII · ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL ENERGY

NOTE.—A writer in the New Science Review undertakes to answer the question: “What is electricity?” In order to lead the reader up to the main question, he first considers the natural forces, gravitation and heat. Examples are given of how these forces are manifested and how energy is changed from one form to another. Every form of force, the author says, should be regarded as a different method in which energy makes itself known to the senses. He calls particular attention to the important fact that the “resistance of one kind or another is always the agent that acts to alter energy from one form to another,” and suggests that electricity is simply a form or manifestation that energy may assume under given conditions, and generally is a mere transitory stage between the mechanical form and the heat form. “In most operations,” he continues, “mechanical force passes to the heat form without passing through the electric form; but whenever magnetism is brought into play as a resistance that must be overcome, then mechanical power applied to overcome this resistance always becomes electricity, if only momentarily in its passage from the mechanical to the heat form.” In conclusion, he asks if the question: “What is electricity?” cannot be answered in a fairly satisfactory way by saying that it is simply a form that energy may assume while undergoing transformation from the mechanical or the chemical form to the heat form or the reverse.