electron in passing through the electric field.
An electron moving in a circular orbit is a powerful radiator of energy, since it is constantly accelerated towards the centre. An electron moving in an orbit of radius equal to the radius of an atom (about 10-8 cms.) would lose most of its kinetic energy of motion in a small fraction of a second, even though its velocity was originally nearly equal to the velocity of light. If, however, a number of electrons are arranged at equal angular intervals on the circumference of a circle and move with constant velocity round the ring, the radiation of energy is much less than for a single electron, and rapidly diminishes with an increase in the number of electrons round the ring. This result, obtained by J. J. Thomson, will be discussed in more detail later when the stability of systems composed of rotating electrons is under consideration.
Since the radiation of energy is proportional to the square of the acceleration, the proportion of the total energy radiated depends upon the suddenness with which an electron is started or stopped. Now some of the cathode ray particles are stopped abruptly when they impinge on the metal cathode, and, in consequence, give up a fraction of their kinetic energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Stokes and Weichert suggested that this radiation constituted the X rays, which are known to have their origin at the surface on which the cathode rays impinge. The mathematical theory has been worked out by J. J. Thomson54. If the motion of an electron is suddenly arrested, a thin spherical pulse in which the magnetic and electric forces are very intense travels out from the point of impact with the velocity of light. The more suddenly the electron is stopped, the thinner and more intense is the pulse. On this view the X rays are not corpuscular like the cathode rays, which produce them, but consist of transverse disturbances in the ether, akin in some respects to light waves of short wave-length. The rays are thus made up of a number of pulses, which are non-periodic in character, and which follow one another at irregular intervals.
On this theory of the nature of the X rays, the absence of direct deflection, refraction, or polarization is to be expected, if the thickness of the pulse is small compared with the diameter