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III PHYSICAL PHENOMENA

referred to Hinton's book, The Fourth Dimension, for an extended development of this idea. What follows is a brief summary of his argument. First, he examines the characteristics of a vortex in a three-dimensional fluid. Then he conceives of what such a vortex would be in a four-dimensional medium of analogous properties. The whirl would be about a plane, and the contour of this plane would correspond to the ends of the axis line in the former vortex; and as before, the vortex would extend to the boundary. Every electric current forms a closed circuit: this is equivalent to the hyper-vortex having its ends in the boundary of the hyper-fluid. The vortex with a surface as its axis, therefore, affords a geometric image of a closed circuit.

Hinton supposes a conductor to be a body which has the property of serving as a terminal abutment to such a hyper-vortex as has been described. The conception that he forms of a closed current, therefore, is of a vortex sheet having its edge along the circuit of the conducting wire. The whole wire would then be

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