George Johnstone Stoney lived between Feruary 15, 1826 to July 5, 1911. He was an Anglo-Irish physicist most famous for
introducing the term electron as the fundamental unit quantity of electricity. He had introduced the concept, though not the
word as early as 1874.
Stoney lived in Oak Par in the Irish midlands. He attended Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a B.A. in 1848 and
a M.A. in 1852. In 1848 he became an assistant to William Parsons who had built the worlds largest telescope.
In 1852 he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Queens College Galeay. In 1857 he moved to Dublin as Secretary of
the Queens University. He then became superintendent of Civil Service Examintaions in Ireland and he held that position until
retirement in 1893. He died in Notting Hill London 1911.
Contemporary physics has settled on the Planck scale as the most suitable scale for a unified theory. The Planck scale
was however anticipated by George Stoney. Like Planck after him, Stoney realized that large-scale effects such as gravity
and small-scale effects such as electromagnetism naturally imply an intermediate scale where physical differences might be
rationalized. This intermediate scale comprises units of mass, length, time etc., yet mass is the cornerstone.
Like the Planck scale, the Stoney scale functions as a symmetrical link between microcosmic and macrocosmic processes in
general and yet it appears uniquely oriented towards the unification of electromagnetism and gravity . Thus for example whereas
the Planck length is the mean square root of the reduced Compton wavelength and half the gravitational radius of any mass,
the Stoney length is the mean square root of the 'electromagnetic radius' ) and half the gravitational radius of any mass,
where is the reduced Planck's constant and c is the speed of light. It should
be noted however that these are only mathematical constructs since there must be some practical limit to how small a length
can get. If the Stoney length is the minimum length then either a body's electromagnetic radius or its half gravitational
radius is a physical impossibility, since one of these must be smaller than the Stoney length. If Planck length is the minimum
then either a body's reduced Compton wavelength or its half gravitational radius is a physical impossibility since one of
these must be smaller than the Planck length. Moreover, the Stoney length and Planck length cannot both be the minimum length.
According to contemporary convention, Planck scale is the scale of vacuum energy, below which space and time do not
retain any physical significance. This prescription mandates a general neglect of the Stoney scale within the scientific community
today. Previous to this mandate, Herman Weyl made a notable attempt to construct a unified theory by associating a gravitational
unit of charge with the Stoney length. Weyl's theory led to significant mathematical innovations but his theory is generally
thought to lack physical significance
