Physicist
Challis worked in hydrodynamics and optics. Challis supported the wave theory of light and advanced the theory of a luminiferous ether as a medium for its propagation. However, he rejected the idea that the ether was an elastic solid, insisting that it was a fluid, bringing him into conflict with Airy and Stokes. Driven by Sir Isaac Newton's somewhat obscure assertion of "a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies", Challis was driven to attempt to derive all physical phenomena from a model of intert spherical atoms embedded in an elastic fluid ether, an enterprise described as an attempt at a "Victorian unified field theory". His work included a mechanical explanation of gravitation. His ideas won few supporters.
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“It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.”
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