Electricity [1]¶
Core Argument¶
Electricity¶
The theory of electricity, despite the galvanic current's epochal significance—comparable to Dalton's atomic weights for chemistry—remains in a state of chaos, characterised by a barren lumber of doubtful experiments and uncoordinated individual research. A one-sided empiricism prevails, forbidding thought and transforming itself into the opposite of true empiricism. Both Hegel and Faraday correctly opposed the conception of electricity as a special distinct matter, viewing it instead as a state or form of motion. The ether theory, advanced by Maxwell and others, reconciles earlier views by conceiving electricity as motion of ether particles penetrating all ponderable matter, and has achieved decisive success: Boltzmann experimentally confirmed Maxwell's calculation that a body's electric specific inductive capacity equals the square of its refractive index.
The fundamental dispute between Volta's contact theory and the chemical theory of the galvanic current turns on the source of energy. The contact theory, which held that current arises from electric stresses on contact of metals and liquids with chemical changes merely secondary, persists despite contradicting the conservation of energy. Wiedemann, as a one-sided empiricist, attempts to salvage this obsolete theory through contradictory explanations, smuggling in chemical decomposition without accounting for its energy source. The battery is in truth a simple apparatus for converting chemical energy into electricity, like a steam engine converting heat into motion. The union of zinc with chlorine supplies the electromotive force; the excess energy liberated when zinc chloride forms, over that needed to free hydrogen from hydrochloric acid, is converted into electric motion.
Wiedemann's confusion between active and passive electrolysis, his failure to distinguish between battery and decomposition cell, and his treatment of primary and secondary processes as absolute rather than relative categories, all stem from a deeper error: conflating force with energy. The "electric force of separation" is not a form of energy but the capacity of a battery to convert chemical energy into electricity—analogous to a steam engine's capacity, not a special force. The experimental material on batteries contains much that is valueless; experiments using water as electrolyte are worthless, and many were conducted before the law of equivalence of motion was recognised yet continue to be reproduced uncritically. Chemical action and electricity interact reciprocally; neither is absolutely primary or secondary. A firm foundation for galvanism requires a chemically exact revision of traditional experiments, establishing energy changes and discarding obsolete theoretical notions.