"Returning to electromagnetic waves. Maxwell's inimitable theory of displacement was for long generally regarded as a speculation. There was, for many years, an almost complete dearth of interest in the unverified parts of Maxwell's theory. Prof. Fitzgerald... was the most prominent of the very few materialists... who appeared to have a solid faith in the electromagnetic theory of the ether; thinking about it and endeavouring to arrive at an idea of the nature of diverging electromagnetic waves, and how to produce them, and to calculate the loss of energy by radiation. An important step was then made by Poynting, establishing the formula for the flow of energy. Still, however, the theory wanted experimental proof. Three years ago electromagnetic waves were nowhere. Shortly after, they were everywhere. This was due to a very remarkable and unexpected event, no less than the experimental discovery by Hertz... of the veritable actuality of electromagnetic waves in the ether. And it never rains but it pours; for whilst Hertz with his resonating circuit was working in Germany... Lodge was doing in some respects similar work in England, in connection with the theory of lightning conductors. These researches, followed by the numerous others of Fitzgerald and Trouton, J. J. Thomson, &c., have dealt a death blow to the electrodynamic speculations of the Weber-Clausius type (to mention only the first and one of the last) and have given to Maxwell's theory just what was wanted in its higher parts, more experimental basis. The interest excited has been immense, and the theorist can now write about electromagnetic waves without incurring the reproach that he is working out a mere paper theory."