The Outline of Science Part 15

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: Leadbeater.

AN ELECTRIC SPARK.

An electric spark consists of a rush of electrons across the s.p.a.ce between the two terminals. A state of tension is established in the ether by the electric charges, and when this tension pa.s.ses a certain limit the discharge takes place.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: From "Scientific Ideas of To-day."

AN ETHER DISTURBANCE AROUND AN ELECTRON CURRENT.

In the left-hand photograph an electric current is pa.s.sing through the coil, thus producing a magnetic field and transforming the poker into a magnet. The poker is then able to support a pair of scissors. As soon as the electric current is broken off, as in the second photograph, the ether disturbance ceases. The poker loses its magnetism, and the scissors fall.]

We have said that light consists of waves. The ether may be considered as resembling, in some respects, a jelly. It can transmit vibrations. The waves of light are really excessively small ripples, measuring from crest to crest. The distance from crest to crest of the ripples in a pond is sometimes no more than an inch or two. This distance is enormously great compared to the longest of the wave-lengths that const.i.tute light. We say the longest, for the waves of light differ in length; the colour depends upon the length of the light. Red light has the longest waves and violet the shortest. The longest waves, the waves of deep-red light, are seven two hundred and fifty thousandths of an inch in length (7/250,000 inch). This is nearly twice the length of deep-violet light-waves, which are 1/67,000 inch. But light-waves, the waves that affect the eye, are not the only waves carried by the ether. Waves too short to affect the eye can affect the photographic plate, and we can discover in this way the existence of waves only half the length of the deep-violet waves. Still shorter waves can be discovered, until we come to those excessively minute rays, the X-rays.

Below the Limits of Visibility.

But we can extend our investigations in the other direction; we find that the ether carries many waves longer than light-waves. Special photographic emulsions can reveal the existence of waves five times longer than violet-light waves. Extending below the limits of visibility are waves we detect as heat-waves. Radiant heat, like the heat from a fire, is also a form of wave-motion in the ether, but the waves our senses recognise as heat are longer than light-waves. There are longer waves still, but our senses do not recognise them. But we can detect them by our instruments. These are the waves used in wireless telegraphy, and their length may be, in some cases, measured in miles. These waves are the so-called electro-magnetic waves. Light, radiant heat, and electro-magnetic waves are all of the same nature; they differ only as regards their wave-lengths.

LIGHT--VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE.

If Light, then, consists of waves transmitted through the ether, what gives rise to the waves? Whatever sets up such wonderfully rapid series of waves must be something with an enormous vibration. We come back to the electron: all atoms of matter, as we have seen, are made up of electrons revolving in a regular orbit round a nucleus. These electrons may be affected by out-side influences, they may be agitated and their speed or vibration increased.

Electrons and Light.

The particles even of a piece of cold iron are in a state of vibration. No nerves of ours are able to feel and register the waves they emit, but your cold poker is really radiating, or sending out a series of wave-movements, on every side. After what we saw about the nature of matter, this will surprise none. Put your poker in the fire for a time. The particles of the glowing coal, which are violently agitated, communicate some of their energy to the particles of iron in the poker. They move to and fro more rapidly, and the waves which they create are now able to affect your nerves and cause a sensation of heat. Put the poker again in the fire, until its temperature rises to 500 C. It begins to glow with a dull red. Its particles are now moving very violently, and the waves they send out are so short and rapid that they can be picked up by the eye--we have visible light. They would still not affect a photographic plate. Heat the iron further, and the crowds of electrons now send out waves of various lengths which blend into white light. What is happening is the agitated electrons flying round in their orbits at a speed of trillions of times a second. Make the iron "blue hot," and it pours out, in addition to light, the invisiblewaves which alter the film on the photographic plate. And beyond these there is a long range of still shorter waves, culminating in the X-rays, which will pa.s.s between the atoms of flesh or stone.

Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago it was proved that light travelled at least 600,000 times faster than sound. Jupiter, as we saw, has moons, which circle round it. They pa.s.s behind the body of the planet, and reappear at the other side. But it was noticed that, when Jupiter is at its greatest distance from us, the reappearance of the moon from behind it is 16 minutes and 36 seconds later than when the planet is nearest to us. Plainly this was because light took so long to cover the additional distance. The distance was then imperfectly known, and the speed of light was underrated. We now know the distance, and we easily get the velocity of light.

No doubt it seems far more wonderful to discover this within the walls of a laboratory, but it was done as long ago as 1850. A cogged wheel is so mounted that a ray of light pa.s.ses between two of the teeth and is reflected back from a mirror. Now, slight as is the fraction of a second which light takes to travel that distance, it is possible to give such speed to the wheel that the next tooth catches the ray of light on its return and cuts it off. The speed is increased still further until the ray of light returns to the eye of the observer through the notch nextto the one by which it had pa.s.sed to the mirror! The speed of the wheel was known, and it was thus possible again to gather the velocity of light. If the shortest waves are 1/67,000 of an inch in length, and light travels at 186,000 miles a second, any person can work out that about 800 trillion waves enter the eye in a second when we see "violet."

Sorting out Light-waves.

The waves sent out on every side by the energetic electrons become faintly visible to us when they reach about 1/35,000 of an inch. As they become shorter and more rapid, as the electrons increase their speed, we get, in succession, the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Each distinct sensation of colour means a wave of different length. When they are all mingled together, as in the light of the sun, we get white light. When this white light pa.s.ses through gla.s.s, the speed of the waves is lessened; and, if the ray of light falls obliquely on a triangular piece of gla.s.s, the waves of different lengths part company as they travel through it, and the light is spread out in a band of rainbow-colour. The waves are sorted out according to their lengths in the "obstacle race" through the gla.s.s. Anyone may see this for himself by holding up a wedge-shaped piece of crystal between the sunlight and the eye; the prism separates the sunlight into its const.i.tuent colours, and these various colours will be seen quite readily. Or the thing may be realised in another way. If the seven colours are painted on a wheel as shown opposite page 280 (in the proportion shown), and the wheel rapidly revolved on a pivot, the wheel will appear a dull white, the several colours will not be seen. But omit one of the colours, then the wheel, when revolved, will not appear white, but will give the impression of one colour, corresponding to what the union of six colours gives. Another experiment will show that some bodies held up between the eye and a white light will not permit all the rays to pa.s.s through, but will intercept some; a body that intercepts all the seven rays except red will give the impression of red, or if all the rays except violet, then violet will be the colour seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: H. J. Shepstone.

LIGHTNING.

In a thunderstorm we have the most spectacular display in lightning of a violent and explosive rush of electrons (electricity) from one body to another, from cloud to cloud, or to the earth. In this wonderful photograph of an electrical storm note the long branched and undulating flashes of lightning. Each flash lasts no longer than the one hundred-thousandth part of a second of time.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIGHT WAVES.

Light consists of waves transmitted through the ether. Waves of light differ in length. The colour of the light depends on the wave-length. Deep-red waves (the longest) are 7/250000 inch and deep-violet waves 1/67000 inch. The diagram shows two wave-motions of different wave-lengths. From crest to crest, or from trough to trough, is the length of the wave.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAGNETIC CIRCUIT OF AN ELECTRIC CURRENT.

The electric current pa.s.sing in the direction of the arrow round the electric circuit generates in the surrounding s.p.a.ce circular magnetic circuits as shown in the diagram. It is this property which lies at the base of the electro-magnet and of the electric dynamo.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAGNET.

The ill.u.s.tration shows the lines of force between two magnets. The lines of force proceed from the north pole of one magnet to the south pole of the other. They also proceed from the north to the south poles of the same magnet. These facts are shown clearly in the diagram. The north pole of a magnet is that end of it which turns to the north when the magnet is freely suspended.]

The Fate of the World.

Professor Soddy has given an interesting picture of what might happen when the sun's light and heat is no longer what it is. The human eye "has adapted itself through the ages to the peculiarities of the sun's light, so as to make the most of that wave-length of which there is most.... Let us indulge for a moment in these gloomy prognostications, as to the consequences to this earth of the cooling of the sun with the lapse of ages, which used to be in vogue, but which radio-activity has so rudely shaken. Picture the fate of the world when the sun has become a dull red-hot ball, or even when it has cooled so far that it would no longer emit light to us. That does not all mean that the world would be in inky darkness, and that the sun would not emit light to the people then inhabiting this world, if any had survived and could keep themselves from freezing. To such, if the eye continued to adapt itself to the changing conditions, our blues and violets would be ultra-violet and invisible, but our dark heat would be light and hot bodies would be luminous to them which would be dark to us."

-- 12.

What the Blue "Sky" means.

We saw in a previous chapter how the spectroscope splits up light-waves into their colours. But nature is constantly splitting the light into its different-lengthed waves, its colours. The rainbow, where dense moisture in the air acts as a spectroscope, is the most familiar example. A piece of mother-of-pearl, or even a film of oil on the street or on water, has the same effect, owing to the fine inequalities in its surface. The atmosphere all day long is sorting out the waves. The blue "sky" overhead means that the fine particles in the upper atmosphere catch the shorter waves, the blue waves, and scatter them. We can make a tubeful of blue sky in the laboratory at any time. The beautiful pink-flush on the Alps at sunrise, the red glory that lingers in the west at sunset, mean that, as the sun's rays must struggle through denser ma.s.ses of air when it is low on the horizon, the long red waves are sifted out from the other shafts.

Then there is the varied face of nature which, by absorbing some waves and reflecting others, weaves its own beautiful robe of colour. Here and there is a black patch, which absorbs all the light. White surfaces reflect the whole of it. What is reflected depends on the period of vibration of the electrons in the particular kind of matter. Generally, as the electrons receive the flood of trillions of waves, they absorb either the long or the medium or the short, and they give us the wonderful colour-scheme of nature. In some cases the electrons continue to radiate long after the sunlight has ceased to fall upon them. We get from them "black" or invisible light, and we can take photographs by it. Other bodies, like gla.s.s, vibrate in unison with the period of the light-waves and let them stream through.

Light without Heat.

There are substances--"phosph.o.r.escent" things we call them--which give out a mysterious cold light of their own. It is one of the problems of science, and one of profound practical interest. If we could produce light without heat our "gas bill" would shrink amazingly. So much energy is wasted in the production of heat-waves and ultra-violet waves which we do not want, that 90 per cent. or more of the power used in illumination is wasted. Would that the glow-worm, or even the dead herring, would yield us its secret! Phosphorus is the one thing we know as yet that suits the purpose, and--it smells! Indeed, our artificial light is not only extravagant in cost, but often poor in colour. The unwary person often buys a garment by artificial light, and is disgusted next morning to find in it a colour which is not wanted. The colour disclosed by the sun was not in the waves of the artificial light.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROTATING DISC OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON FOR MIXING COLOURS.

The Spectroscope sorts out the above seven colours from sunlight (which is compounded of these seven colours). If painted in proper proportions on a wheel, as shown in the coloured ill.u.s.tration, and the wheel be turned rapidly on a pivot through its centre, only a dull white will be perceived. If one colour be omitted, the result will be one colour--the result of the union of the remaining six.]

Beyond the waves of violet light are the still shorter and more rapid waves--the "ultra-violet" waves--which are precious to the photographer. As every amateur knows, his plate may safely be exposed to light that comes through a red or an orange screen. Such a screen means "no thoroughfare" for the blue and "beyond-blue" waves, and it is these which arrange the little grains of silver on the plate. It is the same waves which supply the energy to the little green grains of matter (chlorophyll) in the plant, preparing our food and timber for us, as will be seen later. The tree struggles upward and spreads out its leaves fanwise to the blue sky to receive them. In our coal-measures, the mighty dead forests of long ago, are vast stores of sunlight which we are prodigally using up.

The X-rays are the extreme end, the highest octave, of the series of waves. Their power of penetration implies that they are excessively minute, but even these have not held their secret from the modern physicist. From a series of beautiful experiments, in which they were made to pa.s.s amongst the atoms of a crystal, we learned their length. It is about the ten-millionth of a millimetre, and a millimetre is about the 1/25 of an inch!

One of the most recent discoveries, made during a recent eclipse of the sun, is that light is subject to gravitation. A ray of light from a star is bent out of its straight path when it pa.s.ses near the ma.s.s of the sun. Professor Eddington tells us that we have as much right to speak of a pound of light as of a pound of sugar. Professor Eddington even calculates that the earth receives 160 tons of light from the sun every year!

ENERGY: HOW ALL LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

As we have seen in an earlier chapter, one of the fundamental ent.i.ties of the universe is matter. A second, not less important, is called energy. Energy is indispensable if the world is to continue to exist, since all phenomena, including life, depend on it. Just as it is humanly impossible to create or to destroy a particle of matter, so is it impossible to create or to destroy energy. This statement will be more readily understood when we have considered what energy is.

Energy, like matter, is indestructible, and just as matter exists in various forms so does energy. And we may add, just as we are ignorant of what the negative and positive particles of electricity which const.i.tute matter really are, so we are ignorant of the true nature of energy. At the same time, energy is not so completely mysterious as it once was. It is another of nature's mysteries which the advance of modern science has in some measure unveiled. It was only during the nineteenth century that energy came to be known as something as distinct and permanent as matter itself.

Forms of Energy.

The existence of various forms of energy had been known, of course, for ages; there was the energy of a falling stone, the energy produced by burning wood or coal or any other substance, but the essential ident.i.ty of all these forms of energy had not been suspected. The conception of energy as something which, like matter, was constant in amount, which could not be created nor destroyed, was one of the great scientific acquisitions of the past century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAVE SHAPES.

Wave-motions are often complex. The above ill.u.s.tration shows some fairly complicated wave shapes. All such wave-motions can be produced by superposing a number of simple wave forms.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE POWER OF A MAGNET.

The ill.u.s.tration is that of a "Phoenix" electric magnet lifting sc.r.a.p from railway trucks. The magnet is 52 inches in diameter and lifts a weight of 26 tons. The same type of magnet, 62 inches in diameter, lifts a weight of 40 tons.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: The Locomotive Publis.h.i.+ng Co., Ltd.

THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

A train travelling at the rate of sixty miles per hour would take rather more than seventeen and a quarter days to go round the earth at the equator, i.e. a distance of 25,000 miles. Light, which travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, would take between one-seventh and one-eighth of a second to go the same distance.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROTATING DISC OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON FOR MIXING COLOURS The Spectroscope sorts out the above seven colours from sunlight (which is compounded of these seven colours). If painted in proper proportions on a wheel, as shown in the coloured ill.u.s.tration, and the wheel turned rapidly on a pivot through its centre, only a dull white will be perceived. If one colour be omitted, the result will be one colour--the result of the union of the remaining six.]

It is not possible to enter deeply into this subject here. It is sufficient if we briefly outline its salient aspects. Energy is recognised in two forms, kinetic and potential. The form of energy which is most apparent to us is the energy of motion; for example, a rolling stone, running water, a falling body, and so on. We call the energy of motion kinetic energy. Potential energy is the energy a body has in virtue of its position--it is its capacity, in other words, to acquire kinetic energy, as in the case of a stone resting on the edge of a cliff.

Energy may a.s.sume different forms; one kind of energy may be converted directly or indirectly into some other form. The energy of burning coal, for example, is converted into heat, and from heat energy we have mechanical energy, such as that manifested by the steam-engine. In this way we can transfer energy from one body to another. There is the energy of the great waterfalls of Niagara, for instance, which are used to supply the energy of huge electric power stations.

What Heat is.

An important fact about energy is, that all energy tends to take the form of heat energy. The impact of a falling stone generates heat; a waterfall is hotter at the bottom than at the top--the falling particles of water, on striking the ground, generate heat; and most chemical changes are attended by heat changes. Energy may remain latent indefinitely in a lump of wood, but in combustion it is liberated, and we have heat as a result. The atom of radium or of any other radio-active substance, as it disintegrates, generates heat. "Every hour radium generates sufficient heat to raise the temperature of its own weight of water, from the freezing point to the boiling point." And what is heat? Heat is molecular motion. The molecules of every substance, as we have seen on a previous page, are in a state of continual motion, and the more vigorous the motion the hotter the body. As wood or coal burns, the invisible molecules of these substances are violently agitated, and give rise to ether waves which our senses interpret as light and heat. In this constant movement of the molecules, then, we have a manifestation of the energy of motion and of heat.

That energy which disappears in one form reappears in another has been found to be universally true. It was Joule who, by churning water, first showed that a measurable quant.i.ty of mechanical energy could be transformed into a measurable quant.i.ty of heat energy. By causing an apparatus to stir water vigorously, that apparatus being driven by falling weights or a rotating flywheel or by any other mechanical means, the water became heated. A certain amount of mechanical energy had been used up and a certain amount of heat had appeared. The relation between these two things was found to be invariable. Every physical change in nature involves a transformation of energy, but the total quant.i.ty of energy in the universe remains unaltered. This is the great doctrine of the Conservation of Energy.

-- 13.

Subst.i.tutes for Coal.

Consider the source of nearly all the energy which is used in modern civilisation--coal. The great forests of the Carboniferous epoch now exists as beds of coal. By the burning of coal--a chemical transformation--the heat energy is produced on which at present our whole civilisation depends. Whence is the energy locked up in the coal derived? From the sun. For millions of years the energy of the sun's rays had gone to form the vast vegetation of the Carboniferous era and had been transformed, by various subtle processes, into the potential energy that slumbers in those immense fossilized forests.

The exhaustion of our coal deposits would mean, so far as our knowledge extends at present, the end of the world's civilisation. There are other known sources of energy, it is true. There is the energy of falling water; the great falls of Niagara are used to supply the energy of huge electric power stations. Perhaps, also, something could be done to utilise the energy of the tides--another instance of the energy of moving water. And attempts have been made to utilise directly the energy of the sun's rays. But all these sources of energy are small compared with the energy of coal. A suggestion was made at a recent British a.s.sociation meeting that deep borings might be sunk in order to utilise the internal heat of the earth, but this is not, perhaps, a very practical proposal. By far the most effective subst.i.tutes for coal would be found in the interior energy of the atom, a source of energy which, as we have seen, is practically illimitable. If the immense electrical energy in the interior of the atom can ever be liberated and controlled, then our steadily decreasing coal supply will no longer be the bugbear it now is to all thoughtful men.

The stored-up energy of the great coal-fields can be used up, but we cannot replace it or create fresh supplies. As we have seen, energy cannot be destroyed, but it can become unavailable. Let us consider what this important fact means.

-- 14.

Dissipation of Energy.

Energy may become dissipated. Where does it go? since if it is indestructible it must still exist. It is easier to ask the question than to give a final answer, and it is not possible in this OUTLINE, where an advanced knowledge of physics is not a.s.sumed on the part of the reader, to go fully into the somewhat difficult theories put forward by physicists and chemists. We may raise the temperature, say, of iron, until it is white-hot. If we stop the process the temperature of the iron will gradually settle down to the temperature of surrounding bodies. As it does so, where does its previous energy go? In some measure it may pa.s.s to other bodies in contact with the piece of iron, but ultimately the heat becomes radiated away in s.p.a.ce where we cannot follow it. It has been added to the vast reservoir of unavailable heat energy of uniform temperature. It is sufficient here to say that if all bodies had a uniform temperature we should experience no such thing as heat, because heat only travels from one body to another, having the effect of cooling the one and warming the other. In time the two bodies acquire the same temperature. The sum-total of the heat in any body is measured in terms of the kinetic energy of its moving molecules.

There must come a time, so far as we can see at present, when, even if all the heat energy of the universe is not radiated away into empty infinite s.p.a.ce, yet a uniform temperature will prevail. If one body is hotter than another it radiates heat to that body until both are at the same temperature. Each body may still possess a considerable quant.i.ty of heat energy, which it has absorbed, but that energy, so far as reactions between those two bodies are concerned, is now unavailable. The same principle applies whatever number of bodies we consider. Before heat energy can be utilised we must have bodies with different temperature. If the whole universe were at some uniform temperature, then, although it might possess an enormous amount of heat energy, this energy would be unavailable.

What a Uniform Temperature would mean.

And what does this imply? It implies a great deal: for if all the energy in the world became unavailable, the universe, as it now is, would cease to be. It is possible that, by the constant interchange of heat radiations, the whole universe is tending to some uniform temperature, in which case, although all molecular motion would not have ceased, it would have become unavailable. In this sense it may be said that the universe is running down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIAGARA FALLS.

The energy of this falling water is prodigious. It is used to generate thousands of horse-power in great electrical installations. The power is used to drive electric trams in cities 150 to 250 miles away.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: Stephen Cribb.

TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY.

An ill.u.s.tration of Energy. The chemical energy brought into existence by firing the explosive manifesting itself as mechanical energy, sufficient to impart violent motion to tons of water.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: Underwood & Underwood.

"BOILING" A KETTLE ON ICE.

When a kettle containing liquid air is placed on ice it "boils" because the ice is intensely hot when compared with the very low temperature of the liquid air.]

If all the molecules of a substance were brought to a standstill, that substance would be at the absolute zero of temperature. There could be nothing colder. The temperature at which all molecular motions would cease is known: it is -273 C. No body could possibly attain a lower temperature than this: a lower temperature could not exist. Unless there exists in nature some process, of which we know nothing at present, whereby energy is renewed, our solar system must one day sink to this absolute zero of temperature. The sun, the earth, and every other body in the universe is steadily radiating heat, and this radiation cannot go on for ever, because heat continually tends to diffuse and to equalise temperatures.

But we can see, theoretically, that there is a way of evading this law. If the chaotic molecular motions which const.i.tute heat could be regulated, then the heat energy of a body could be utilised directly. Some authorities think that some of the processes which go on in the living body do not involve any waste energy, that the chemical energy of food is transformed directly into work without any of it being dissipated as useless heat energy. It may be, therefore, that man will finally discover some way of escape from the natural law that, while energy cannot be destroyed, it has a tendency to become unavailable.

The primary reservoir of energy is the atom; it is the energy of the atom, the atom of elements in the sun, the stars, the earth, from which nature draws for all her supply of energy. Shall we ever discover how we can replenish the dwindling resources of energy, or find out how we can call into being the at present unavailable energy which is stored up in uniform temperature?

It looks as if our successors would witness an interesting race, between the progress of science on the one hand and the depletion of natural resources upon the other. The natural rate of flow of energy from its primary atomic reservoirs to the sea of waste heat energy of uniform temperature, allows life to proceed at a complete pace sternly regulated by the inexorable laws of supply and demand, which the biologists have recognised in their field as the struggle for existence.[5]

[5] Matter and Energy, by Professor Soddy.

It is certain that energy is an actual ent.i.ty just as much as matter, and that it cannot be created or destroyed. Matter and ether are receptacles or vehicles of energy. As we have said, what these ent.i.ties really are in themselves we do not know. It may be that all forms of energy are in some fundamental way aspects of the same primary ent.i.ty which const.i.tutes matter: how all matter is const.i.tuted of particles of electricity we have already seen. The question to which we await an answer is: What is electricity?

-- 15.

MATTER, ETHER, AND EINSTEIN.

The supreme synthesis, the crown of all this progressive conquest of nature, would be to discover that the particles of positive and negative electricity, which make up the atoms of matter, are points or centres of disturbances of some kind in a universal ether, and that all our "energies" (light, magnetism, gravitation, etc.) are waves or strains of some kind set up in the ether by these cl.u.s.ters of electrons.

It is a fascinating, tantalising dream. Larmor suggested in 1900 that the electron is a tiny whirlpool, or "vortex," in ether; and, as such a vortex may turn in either of two opposite ways, we seem to see a possibility of explaining positive and negative electricity. But the difficulties have proved very serious, and the nature of the electron is unknown. A recent view is that it is "a ring of negative electricity rotating about its axis at a high speed," though that does not carry us very far. The unit of positive electricity is even less known. We must be content to know the general lines on which thought is moving toward the final unification.

We say "unification," but it would be a grave error to think that ether is the only possible basis for such unity, or to make it an essential part of one's philosophy of the universe. Ether was never more than an imagined ent.i.ty to which we ascribed the most extraordinary properties, and which seemed then to promise considerable aid. It was conceived as an elastic solid of very great density, stretching from end to end of the universe, transmitting waves from star to star at the rate of 186,000 miles a second; yet it was believed that the most solid matter pa.s.sed through it as if it did not exist.

Some years ago a delicate experiment was tried for the purpose of detecting the ether. Since the earth, in travelling round the sun, must move through the ether if the ether exists, there ought to be a stream of ether flowing through every laboratory; just as the motion of a s.h.i.+p through a still atmosphere will make "a wind." In 1887 Michelson and Morley tried to detect this. Theoretically, a ray of light in the direction of the stream ought to travel at a different rate from a ray of light against the stream or across it. They found no difference, and scores of other experiments have failed. This does not prove that there is no ether, as there is reason to suppose that our instruments would appear to shrink in precisely the same proportion as the alteration of the light; but the fact remains that we have no proof of the existence of ether. J. H. Jeans says that "nature acts as if no such thing existed." Even the phenomena of light and magnetism, he says, do not imply ether; and he thinks that the hypothesis may be abandoned. The primary reason, of course, for giving up the notion of the ether is that, as Einstein has shown, there is no way of detecting its existence. If there is an ether, then, since the earth is moving through it, there should be some way of detecting this motion. The experiment has been tried, as we have said, but, although the method used was very sensitive, no motion was discovered. It is Einstein who, by revolutionising our conceptions of s.p.a.ce and time, showed that no such motion ever could be discovered, whatever means were employed, and that the usual notion of the ether must be abandoned. We shall explain this theory more fully in a later section.

INFLUENCE OF THE TIDES: ORIGIN OF THE MOON: THE EARTH SLOWING DOWN.

-- 16.

Until comparatively recent times, until, in fact, the full dawn of modern science, the tides ranked amongst the greatest of nature's mysteries. And, indeed, what agency could be invoked to explain this mysteriously regular flux and reflux of the waters of the ocean? It is not surprising that that steady, rhythmical rise and fall suggested to some imaginative minds the breathing of a mighty animal. And even when man first became aware of the fact that this regular movement was somehow a.s.sociated with the moon, was he much nearer an explanation? What bond could exist between the movements of that distant world and the diurnal variation of the waters of the earth? It is reported that an ancient astronomer, despairing of ever resolving the mystery, drowned himself in the sea.

The Earth Pulled by the Moon.

But it was part of the merit of Newton's mighty theory of gravitation that it furnished an explanation even of this age-old mystery. We can see, in broad outlines at any rate, that the theory of universal attraction can be applied to this case. For the moon, Newton taught us, pulls every particle of matter throughout the earth. If we imagine that part of the earth's surface which comprises the Pacific Ocean, for instance, to be turned towards the moon, we see that the moon's pull, acting on the loose and mobile water, would tend to heap it up into a sort of mound. The whole earth is pulled by the moon, but the water is more free to obey this pull than is the solid earth, although small tides are also caused in the earth's solid crust. It can be shown also that a corresponding hump would tend to be produced on the other side of the earth, owing, in this case, to the tendency of the water, being more loosely connected, to lag behind the solid earth. If the earth's surface were entirely fluid the rotation of the earth would give the impression that these two humps were continually travelling round the world, once every day. At any given part of the earth's surface, therefore, there would be two humps daily, i.e. two periods of high water. Such is the simplest possible outline of the gravitational theory of the tides.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAUSE OF TIDES.

The tides of the sea are due to the pull of the moon, and, in lesser degree, of the sun. The whole earth is pulled by the moon, but the loose and mobile water is more free to obey this pull than is the solid earth, although small tides are also caused in the earth's solid crust. The effect which the tides have on slowing down the rotation of the earth is explained in the text.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: G. Brocklehurst.

THE AEGIR ON THE TRENT.

An exceptionally smooth formation due to perfect weather conditions. The wall-like formation of these tidal waves (see next page also) will be noticed. The reason for this is that the downward current in the river heads the sea-water back, and thus helps to exaggerate the advancing slope of the wave. The exceptional spring tides are caused by the combined operation of the moon and the sun, as is explained in the text.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo: G. Brocklehurst.

A BIG SPRING TIDE, THE AEGIR ON THE TRENT]