Dielectric synonyms

For constant charges and distances the mechanical force is inversely as the dielectric constant.

K= (I +2a)/(I -a), or a=(K-I)/(K+2), where K is the dielectric constant and a the fraction of the total volume actually occupied by matter.

Mossotti found a relation between the dielectric constant and the space actually occupied by the molecules, viz.

Again, water, the best electrolytic solvent known, is also the body of the highest specific inductive capacity (dielectric constant), and this property, to whatever cause it may be due, will reduce the forces between electric charges in the neighbourhood, and may therefore enable two ions to separate.

Clerk Maxwell demonstrated, however, that all electric charge or electrification of conductors consists simply in the establishment of a physical state in the surrounding insulator or dielectric, which state is variously called electric strain, electric displacement or electric polarization.