The Electric Current
Hinton conceived of an electric current as a four-dimensional vortex. He declared that on the Higher Space Hypothesis the revolution of the ether would yield the phenomenon of the electric current. The reader is referred to Hinton’s book, The Fourth Dimension, for an extended development of this idea. What follows is a brief summary of his argument. First, he examines the characteristics of a vortex in a three-dimensional fluid. Then he conceives of what such a vortex would be in a four-dimensional medium of analogous properties. The whirl would be about a plane, and the contour of this plane would correspond to the ends of the axis line in the former vortex; and as before, the vortex would extend to the boundary. Every electric current forms a closed circuit: this is equivalent to the hyper-vortex having its ends in the boundary of the hyper-fluid. The vortex with a surface as its axis, therefore, affords a geometric image of a closed circuit.
Hinton supposes a conductor to be a body which has the property of serving as a terminal abutment to such a hyper-vortex as has been described. The conception that he forms of a closed current, therefore, is of a vortex sheet having its edge along the circuit of the conducting wire. The whole wire would then be like the centers on which a spindle turns in three-dimensional space, and any interruption of the continuity of the wire would produce a tension in place of a continuous revolution. The phenomena of electricity—polarity, induction, and the like—are of the nature of the stress and strain of a medium, but one possessing properties unlike those of ordinary matter. The phenomena can be explained in terms of higher space. If Hinton’s hypothesis be the true explanation, the universality of electro-magnetic action would again point to the conclusion that our three-dimensional world is superficial—the surface, that is, of a four-dimensional universe.