A Proof of the unpreparedness of the scientific world for the new discovery of a force in nature that traverses all known modes of motion is the fact that there is as yet no name for the interesting stranger. It acts chemically on bromide film, and so far is entitled to be classed with heat, light, electricity and chemical affinity.
But to speak of it as light, or to employ any of the ordinary terms in which we are wont to deal with phenomena of vision, would manifestly be absurd. The mere fact that it is susceptible of focalization by a photographic camera by no means establishes an identity with light. On the contrary— such apparent relationships in the natural world are so often misleading that they seem to have been specially designed as a warning against too rapid generalization.
What the scientific world should now prepare for is a thorough modification of all its preconceptions of force. We are still apt, in a much greater degree than we have any idea of, to tinge our conceptions of force with the properties of matter. There are not too many of us who can think, for example, of a wave apart from the water which it actuates.
