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806.] The most important step in establishing a relation between electric and magnetic phenomena and those of light must be the discovery of some instance in which the one set of phenomena is affected by the other. In the search for such phenomena we must be guided by any knowledge we may have already obtained with respect to the mathematical or geometrical form of the quantities which we wish to compare. Thus, if we endeavour, as Mrs. Somerville did, to magnetize a needle by means of light, we must remember that the distinction between magnetic north and south is a mere matter of direction, and would be at once reversed if we reverse certain conventions about the use of mathematical signs. There is nothing in magnetism analogous to those phenomena of electrolysis which enable us to distinguish positive from negative electricity, by observing that oxygen appears at one pole of a cell and hydrogen at the other.
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806.] The most important step in establishing a relation between electric and magnetic phenomena and those of light must be the discovery of some instance in which the one set of phenomena is affected by the other. In the search for such phenomena we must be guided by any knowledge we may have already obtained with respect to the mathematical or geometrical form of the quantities which we wish to compare. Thus, if we endeavour, as Mrs. Somerville did, to magnetize a needle by means of light, we must remember that the distinction between magnetic north and south is a mere matter of direction, and would be at once reversed if we reverse certain conventions about the use of mathematical signs. There is nothing in magnetism analogous to those phenomena of electrolysis which enable us to distinguish positive from negative electricity, by observing that oxygen appears at one pole of a cell and hydrogen at the other.
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