Conductivity.
The relative power of conducting the electric current possessed by
different substances. A path for the current through the ether is opened
by the presence of a body of proper quality, and this quality, probably
correlated to opacity, is termed conductivity. There is no perfect
conductor, all offer some resistance, q. v., and there is hardly any
perfect non-conductor. It is the reverse and reciprocal of resistance.
Conductivity, Specific.
The reciprocal of specific resistance. (See Resistance--Specific.)
Conductivity, Unit of.
The reciprocal of the ohm; it is a more logical unit, but has never been
generally adopted; as a name the title mho (or ohm written backwards)
has been suggested by Sir William Thomson, and provisionally adopted.
Conductivity, Variable.
The conductivity for electric currents of conductors varies with their
temperature, with varying magnetization, tension, torsion and
compression.
Conductor.
In electricity, anything that permits the passage of an electric
current. Any disturbance in the ether takes the form of waves because
the ether has restitutive force or elasticity. In a conductor, on the
other hand, this force is wanting; it opens a path through the ether and
a disturbance advances through it from end to end with a wave front, but
with no succession of waves. This advance is the beginning of what is
termed a current. It is, by some theorists, attributed to impulses given
at all points along the conductor through the surrounding ether, so that
a current is not merely due to an end thrust. If ether waves preclude a
current on account of their restitutive force, ether waves cannot be
maintained in a conductor, hence conductors should be opaque to light,
for the latter is due to ether waves. This is one of the more practical
every day facts brought out in Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of
light. The term conductor is a relative one, as except a vacuum there is
probably no substance that has not some conducting power. For relative
conducting power, tables of conductivity, q. v., should be consulted.
The metals beginning with silver are the best conductors, glass is one
of the worst.
[Transcriber's note: See "ether" for contemporary comments on this now
discarded concept.]
Conductor, Anti-Induction.
A current conductor arranged to avoid induction from other lines. Many
kinds have been invented and made the subject of patents. A fair
approximation may be attained by using a through metallic circuit and
twisting the wires composing it around each other. Sometimes concentric
conductors, one a wire and the other a tube, are used, insulated, one
acting as return circuit for the other.
Conductor, Conical.
A prime conductor of approximately conical shape, but rounded on all
points and angles. Its potential is highest at the point.