of the doctrine as interpreted from previous writings both of Boltzmann and Maxwell, and subsequent writings of Boltzmann, and of Rayleigh *, the most recent supporter of the doctrine, is that a single geodetic drawn long enough will not only fulfil Maxwell's condition of passing infinitely near to every point of the surface in all directions, but will pass with equal frequencies in all directions ; and as many times within a certain infinitesimal distance +8 of any one point P as of any other point P' anywhere over the whole surface. This, if true, would be an exceedingly interesting theorem*
§ 35. I have made many efforts to test it for the case in which the closed surface is reduced to a plane with other boundaries than an exact ellipse (for which, as we have seen
Fig, 3.
enclosed area turned on meeting the boundary, according to the law of equal angles of incidence and reflection, which corresponds also to the case of an ideal perfectly smooth; non-rotating billiard-ball moving in straight lines except when it strikes the boundary of the table ; the boundary being of any shape whatever, instead of the ordinary rectangular boundary of an ordinary billiard-table, and bein# perfecti}' elastic. An interesting illustration, easily seen
* Phil. Mag., January 1C00.
through a large lecture-hall, is had by taking a thin wooden board, cut to any chosen shape, with the corner edges of the boundary smoothly rounded, and winding a stout black cord round and round it many times, beginning with one end fixed to any point, I, of the board. If the pressure of the cord 011 the edges were perfectly frictionless, the cord would, at every turn round the border, place itself so as to fulfil the law of equal angles of incidence and reflection, modified in virtue of the thickness of the board. For stability, it would be necessary to fix points of the cord to the board by staples pushed in over it at sufficiently frequent intervals, care being taken that at no point is the cord disturbed from its proper straight line by the staple. [Boards of a considerable variety
Fig- 4.
of shape with cords thus wound on them were shown as illustrations of the lecture.]
§ 36. A very easy way of drawing accurately the path of a particle moving in a plane and reflected from a bounding wall of any shape, provided only that it is not concave externally in any part, is furnished by a somewhat interesting kinematical method illustrated by the accompanying diagram (fig. 4). It is easily realized by using two equal and similar pieces of board, cut to any desired figure, one of them being turned upside down relatively to the other, so that when the two are placed together with corresponding points in contact, each is the image of the other relative to the plane of contact regarded as a mirror. Sufficiently close corresponding points should be accurately marked on the boundaries of the twro figures, and this allows great accuracy to be obtained in the drawing of the free path after each reflection. The diagram
