The Boy's Playbook of Science Part 33

LIGHT, OPTICS, AND OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 246. "The moon s.h.i.+nes bright:--In such a night as this."--_The Merchant of Venice._]

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."

Perfection admits of no addition, and it is just this feeling that might check the most eloquent speaker or brilliant writer who attempted to offer in appropriate language, the praises due to that first great creation of the Almighty, when the Spirit of G.o.d moved upon the face of the waters and said, "Let there be light." If any poet might be permitted to laud and glorify this transcendant gift, it should be the inspired Milton; who having enjoyed the blessing of light, and witnessed the varied and beautiful phenomena that accompany it, could, when afflicted by blindness, speak rapturously of its creation, in those sublime strains beginning with--

[Page 256]

"'Let there be light,' said G.o.d, and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep: and from her native east To journey through the airy gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourn'd the while. G.o.d saw the light was good, And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided: light the day, and darkness night, He named."

There cannot be a more glorious theme for the poet, than the vast utility of light, or a more sublime spectacle, than the varied and beautiful phenomena that accompany it. Ever since the divine command went forth, has the sun continued to s.h.i.+ne, and to remain, "till time shall be no more," the great source of light to the world, to be the means of disclosing to the eye of man all the beautiful and varied hues of the organic and inorganic world. By the help of light we enjoy the prismatic colours of the rainbow, the lovely and ever changing and ever varied tints of the forest trees, the flowers, the birds, and the insects; the different forms of the clouds, the lovely blue sky, the refres.h.i.+ng green fields; or even the graceful adornment of "the fair,"

their beautiful dresses of exquisite patterns and colours. Light works insensibly, and at all seasons, in promoting marvellous chemical changes, and is now fairly engaged and used for man's industrial purposes, in the pleasing art of photography; just as heat, electricity, and magnetism, (all imponderable and invisible agents,) are employed usefully in other ways.

The sources from whence light is derived are six in number. The first is the sun, overwhelming us with its size, and destroying life, sometimes, with his intense heat and light, when the piercing rays are not obstructed by the friendly clouds and vapours, which temper and mitigate their intensity, and prevent the too frequent recurrence of that quick and dire enemy to man, the _coup de soleil_.

The body of the sun is supposed to be a habitable globe like our own, and the heat and light are possibly thrown out from one of the atmospheric strata surrounding it. There are probably three of these strata, the one believed to envelope the body of the sun, and to be directly in contact with it, is called the _cloudy stratum_; next to, and above this, is the luminous stratum, and this is supposed to be the source of heat and light; the third and last envelope is of a transparent gaseous nature. These ideas have originated from astronomers who have carefully watched the sun and discovered the presence of certain black spots called _Maculae_, which vary in diameter from a few hundreds of miles to 40 or 50,000 miles and upwards. There is also a greyish shade surrounding the black spots called the _Penumbra_, and likewise other spots of a more luminous character termed _Faculae_; indeed the whole disc of the sun has a mottled appearance, and is stippled over with minute shady dots. The cause of this is explained by supposing that these various spots represent openings or breaks in the atmospheric strata, through which the black body of the sun is apparent or other portions of the three strata, just as if a black ball was covered with red, then with yellow, and finally with blue silk: on cutting through the blue the yellow is apparent; by snipping out pieces of the blue and yellow, the red becomes visible; and by slicing away a portion of the three silk coverings the black ball at last comes into view. On a similar principle it is [Page 257]supposed that the variety of spots and eruptions on the sun's face or disc may be explained. The evolution of light is not, however, confined to the sun, and it emanates freely from terrestrial matter by mechanical action, either by friction, or in some cases by mere percussion. Thus the axles of railway carriages soon become red hot by friction if the oil holes are stopped up; indeed hot axles are very frequent in railway travelling, and when this happens, a strong smell of burning oil is apparent, and flames come out of the axle box. The knife-grinder offers a familiar example of the production of light by the attrition of iron or steel against his dry grindstone.

The same result on a much grander scale is produced by the apparatus invented by the late Jacob Perkins; the combustion of steel ensues under the action, viz., the friction of a soft iron disc revolving with great velocity against a file or other convenient piece of hardened steel.

(Fig. 247.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 247. Instrument for the combustion of steel.]

The stand has a disc of soft iron fixed upon an axis, which revolves on two anti-friction wheels of bra.s.s. The disc, by means of a belt worked over a wheel immediately below it, is made to perform 5000 revolutions per minute. If the hardest file is pressed against the edge of the revolving disc, the velocity of the latter produces sufficient heat by the great friction to melt that portion of the file which is brought in contact with it, whilst some particles of the file are torn away with violence, and being [Page 258] projected into the air, burn with that beautiful effect so peculiar to steel. If the experiment is performed in a darkened room, the periphery of the revolving disc will be observed to have attained a luminous red heat. Thirty years ago every house was provided with a "tinder-box" and matches to "strike a light." Since the advent of prometheans and lucifers, the flint and steel, the tinder, and the matches dipped in sulphur, have all disappeared, and now the box might be deposited in any antiquarian museum under the portrait of Guy Fawkes, and labelled, "an instrument for procuring a light, extensively used in the early part of the nineteenth century." (Fig. 248.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 248. C. The steel. B. The flint. E. The tinder. D.

The matches of the old-fas.h.i.+oned tinder-box, A.]

The rubbing of a piece of wood (hardened by fire, and cut to a point) against another and softer kind, has been used from time immemorial by savage nations to evoke heat and light; the wood is revolved in the fas.h.i.+on of a drill with unerring dexterity by the hands of the savage, and being surrounded with light chips, and gently aided by the breath, the latent fire is by great and incessant labour at last procured. How favourably the modern lucifers compare with these laborious efforts of barbarous tribes! a child may now procure a light with a chemically prepared metal, and great merit is due to that person who first devised a method of mixing together phosphorus and chlorate of potash and so [Page 259] adjusted these dangerous materials that they are as safe as the "old tinder-box," and have now become one of our domestic necessaries. Ignition, or the increase of heat in a solid body, is another source of light, and is well ill.u.s.trated in the production of illuminating power from the combustion of tallow, oil, wax, camphine or coal gas. The term _ignition_ is derived from the Latin (_ignis_, fire), and is quite distinct, and has a totally different meaning from that of _combustion_. If a gla.s.s jar is filled with carbonic acid gas, and a little tray placed in it containing some gun cotton, it will be found impossible to fire the latter with a lighted taper, _i.e._ by combustion (_comburo_, to burn), because the gas extinguishes flame which is dependent on a supply of oxygen; whereas if a copper or other metallic wire is made red hot or ignited, the carbonic acid has no effect upon the heat, and the red hot wire being pa.s.sed through the gas, the gun cotton is immediately fired.

Flame consists of three parts--viz., of an outer film, which comes directly in contact with the air, and has little or no luminosity; also of a second film, where carbon is deposited, and, first by _ignition_, and finally by combustion, produces the light; and thirdly, of an interior s.p.a.ce containing unburnt gas, which is, as it were, waiting its turn to reach the external air, and to be consumed in the ordinary manner. (Fig. 249.)

Chemical action and electricity have been so frequently mentioned in this work as a source of heat and light, that it will be unnecessary to do more than to mention them here, whilst phosph.o.r.escence (the sixth source of light) in dead and living matter, a spontaneous production of light, is well known and exemplified in the "glow-worm," the "fire-fly,"

the luminosity of the water of the ocean, or the decomposing remains of certain fish, and even of human bodies. Phosph.o.r.escence is still more curiously exemplified by holding a sheet of white paper, a calcined oyster-sh.e.l.l, or even the hand, in the sun's rays, and then retiring quickly to a darkened room, when they appear to be luminous, and visible even after the light has ceased to fall upon them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 249. A candle flame. 1. Outer flame. 2. Inner flame, which is badly supplied with oxygen, and where the carbon is deposited and _ignited_. 3. The interior, containing unburnt gas.]

For the purpose of examining the temporary phosph.o.r.escence of various bodies, M. Becquerel has invented a most ingenious instrument, called the "phosph.o.r.escope." It [Page 260] consists of a cylinder of wood one inch in diameter and seven inches long, placed in the angle of a black box with the electric lamp inside, so that three-fourths of the cylinder are visible outside, and the remaining fourth exposed to the interior electric light.

By means of proper wheels the cylinder, covered with any substance (such as Becquerel's phosphori), is made to revolve 300 times in a second, and by using this or a lesser velocity, the various phosphori are first exposed to a powerful light and then brought in view of the spectator outside the box.

It is understood that light is produced by an emanation of rays from a luminous body. If a stone is thrown from the hand, an arrow shot from a bow, or a ball from a cannon, we perfectly understand how either of them may be propelled a certain distance, and why they may travel through s.p.a.ce; but when we hear that light travels from the sun, which is ninety-five millions of miles away from the earth, in about seven minutes and a half, it is interesting to know what is the kind of force that propels the light through that vast distance, and also what is supposed to be the nature of the light itself.

There are two theories by which the nature of light, and its propagation through s.p.a.ce, are explained; they are named after the celebrated men who proposed them, as also from the theoretical mechanism of their respective modes of propulsion: thus we have the Newtonian or _corpuscular_ theory of light, and the Huyghenian or _undulatory_ theory; the first named after Sir Isaac Newton, and the second after Huyghens, another most learned mathematician. Many years before Newton made his grand discovery of the composition of light in the year 1672, mathematicians were in favour of the _undulatory_ theory, and it numbered amongst its supporters not only Huyghens, but Descartes, Hook, Malebranche, and other learned men. Mankind has always been glad to follow renowned leaders, it is so much easier, and is in most cases perhaps the better course, to resign individual opinion when more learned men than ourselves not only adopt but insist upon the truth of their theories; and this was the case with the corpuscular theory, which had been written upon systematically and supported by Empedocles, a philosopher of Agrigentum in Sicily, who lived some 444 years before the Christian era, and is said to have been most learned and eloquent; he maintained that light consisted of particles projected from luminous bodies, and that vision was performed both by the effect of these particles on the eye, and by means of a visual influence emitted by the eye itself. In course of time, and at least 2000 years after this theory was advanced, philosophers had gradually rejected the corpuscular theory, until the great Newton, about the middle of the seventeenth century, advanced as a champion to the rescue, and stamping the hypothesis with his approval, at once led away the whole army of philosophers in its favour, so that till about the beginning of the nineteenth century the whole of the phenomena of light were explained upon this hypothesis.

The corpuscular theory, reduced to the briefest definition, supposes light to be really a material agent, and requires the student to believe [Page 261] that this agent consists of particles so inconceivably minute that they could not be weighed, and of course do not gravitate; the corpuscles are supposed to be given out bodily (like sparks of burning steel from a gerb firework) from the sun, the fixed stars, and all luminous bodies; to travel with enormous velocity, and therefore to possess the property of _inertia_; and to excite the sensation of vision by striking bodily upon the expanded nerve, the retina, the quasi-mind of the eye. Dr. Young remarks, "that according to this projectile theory the force employed in the free emission of light must be about a million million times as great as the force of gravity at the earth's surface, and it must either act with equal intensity on all the particles of light, or must impel some of them through a greater s.p.a.ce than others, if its action be more powerful, since the velocity is the same in all cases--for example, if the projectile force is weaker with respect to red light than with respect to violet light, it must continue its action on the red rays to a greater distance than on the violet rays. There is no instance in nature besides of a simple projectile moving with a velocity uniform in all cases, whatever may be its cause; and it is extremely difficult to imagine that such an immense force of repulsion can reside in all substances capable of becoming luminous, so that the light of decaying wood, or two pebbles rubbed together, may be projected precisely with the same velocity as the light emitted by iron burning in oxygen gas, or by the reservoir of liquid fire on the surface of the sun." Now one of the most striking circ.u.mstances respecting the propagation of light, is the _uniformity_ of its velocity in the same medium. These and other difficulties in the application of the corpuscular theory aroused the attention of the late Dr. Young, and in the year 1801 he again revived and supported the neglected undulatory theory with such great ability that the attention of many learned mathematicians was directed to the subject, and now it may be said that the corpuscular theory is almost, if not entirely, rejected, whilst the undulatory theory is once more, and deservedly, used to explain the theory of light, and its propagation through s.p.a.ce.

By this hypothesis it is a.s.sumed that the whole universe, including the most minute pores of all matter, whether solid, fluid, or gaseous, are filled with a highly elastic rare medium of a most attenuated nature, called _ether_, possessing the property of _inertia_ but not of gravitation. This _ether_ is not light, but light is produced in it by the excitation on the part of luminous bodies of a vibratory motion, similar to the undulation of water that produces waves, or the vibration of air affording sound. Water set in motion produces waves. Air set in motion produces waves of sound. Ether, _i.e._ the theoretical ether pervading all matter, likewise set in motion, produces light. The nature of a vibratory medium is indeed better understood by reference to that which we know possesses the ordinary properties of matter--viz., the air; and by tracing out the a.n.a.logy between the propagation of sound and light, the difficulties of the undulatory theory very quickly vanish. To ill.u.s.trate vibration it is only necessary to procure a finger gla.s.s, and having supported a little ebony ball attached to a silk thread by a bent bra.s.s [Page 262] wire directly over it, so that the ball may touch either the outside or the inside of the gla.s.s, attention must be directed to the quiescence of the ball when a violin bow is lightly moved over the edge of the gla.s.s without producing sound, and to the contrary effect obtained by so moving and pressing the bow that a sharp sound is emitted, when immediately the little ball is thrown off from the edge, the repulsive action being continued as long as the sound is produced by the vibration of the gla.s.s. (Fig. 250.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 250. A. The finger gla.s.s. B. The violin bow. C. The ebony ball. The dotted ball shows how it is repelled during the vibration of the gla.s.s.]

Here the vibrations are first set up in the gla.s.s, and being communicated to the surrounding air, a sound is produced; if the same experiment could be performed in a vacuum, the gla.s.s might be vibrated, but not being surrounded with air, no sound would be produced. This fact is proved by first ringing a bell with proper mechanism fixed under the receiver placed on the air-pump plate; the sound of the bell is audible until the pump is put in motion and the receiver gradually exhausted, when the ringing noise becomes fainter and fainter, until it is perfectly inaudible. This experiment is made more instructive by gradually admitting the air again into the exhausted vessel, and at the same time ringing the bell, when the sound becomes gradually louder, until it attains its full power. The sun and other luminous bodies may be compared to the finger gla.s.s, and are supposed to be endowed naturally with a vibratory motion (a sort of perpetual ague), only instead of the air being set in motion, the _ether_ is supposed to be thrown into waves, which travel through s.p.a.ce, and convey the impression of light from the luminous object. Another familiar example of an undulatory medium is shown by throwing a stone into a pool of water; the former immediately forces down and displaces a certain number of the particles of the latter, consequently the surrounding molecules of water are heaped up above their level; by the force of gravitation they again descend and throw up another wave, this in subsiding raises another, until the force of the original and loftier [Page 263] wave dies away at the edge of the pool into the faintest ripples. It must however be understood that it is not the particles of water first set in motion that travel and spread out in concentric circles; but the force is propagated by the rising and falling of each separate particle of water as it is disturbed by the momentum of the descending wave before it.

When standing at a pier-head, or on a rock against which the sea dashes, it is usual to hear the observer cry out, if the weather is stormy and the waves very high, "Oh! here comes a great wave!" as if the water travelled bodily from the spot where it was first noticed, whereas it is simply the force that travels, and is exerted finally on the water nearest the rock. It is in fact a progressive action, just as the wind sweeps over a wide field of corn, and bends down the ears one after the other, giving them for the time the appearance of waves. The principle of successive action is well shown by placing a number of billiard b.a.l.l.s in a row, and touching each other; if the first is struck the motion is communicated through the rest, which remain immovable, whilst the last only flies out of its place. The force travels through all the b.a.l.l.s, which simply act as carriers, their motion is limited, and the last only changes its position. Progressive movement is also well displayed by arranging six or eight magnetized needles on points in a row, with all their north poles in one direction. (Fig. 252.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 251. Boy throwing stones into water and producing circular waves.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 252. A B. Series of needles arranged as described.

C. The bar magnet, with the north pole N towards the needles. The dotted lines show the direction gradually a.s.sumed by all the needles, commencing at D.]

On approaching the north pole of a bar magnet to the same pole of one [Page 264] end of the series of needles, it is very curious to see them turn in the opposite direction progressively, one after the other, as the repulsive power of the bar magnet gradually operates upon the similar poles in the magnetic needles. The undulations of the waves of water are also perfectly shown by using the apparatus consisting of the trough with the gla.s.s bottom and screen above it, as described at page 10. The transmission of vibrations from one place to another is also admirably displayed in Professor Wheatstone's Telephonic Concert (see page picture), where the musical instruments, as at the Polytechnic, were placed by the author in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and the vibration only conducted by wooden rods to the sounding-boards above, so that the music was laid on like gas or water. These vibrations or undulations in air, water, and the theoretical ether, have therefore been called waves of water, waves of sound, and waves of light, just as if three clocks were made of three different metals, the mechanism would remain the same, though the material, or in this case the medium, be different in each.

Any increase in the number of vibrations of the air produces acute, whilst a decrease attends the grave sounds, and when the waves succeed each other not less than sixteen times in a second, the lowest sound is produced. Light and colours are supposed to be due to a similar cause, and in order to produce the red ray, no less than 477 millions of millions of vibrations must occur in a second of time; the orange, 506; yellow, 535; green, 577; blue, 622; indigo, 658; violet, 699; and white light, which is made up of these colours, numbers 541 millions of millions of undulations in a second.

Although light travels with such amazing rapidity, there is of course a certain time occupied in its pa.s.sage through s.p.a.ce--there is no such thing as instantaneity in nature. A certain period of time, however small, must elapse in the performance of any act whatever, and it has been proved by a careful observation of the time at which the eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter are perceived, that light travels at the rate of 192,500 miles per second, and by the aberration of the fixed stars, 191,515, the mean of these two sets of observations would probably afford the correct rate. Such a velocity is, however, somewhat difficult to appreciate, and therefore, to a.s.sist our comprehension of their great magnitude, Sir J. Herschel has given some very interesting comparative calculations, and coming from such an authority we can readily believe them to be correct.

"A cannon-ball moving uniformly at its greatest velocity would require seventeen years to reach the sun. Light performs the same distance in about seven minutes and a half.

"The swiftest bird, at its utmost speed, would require nearly three weeks to make the tour of the earth, supposing it could proceed without stopping to take food or rest. Light performs the same distance in less time than is required for a single stroke of its wing."

Dismissing for the present the theory of undulations, it will be necessary to examine the phenomena of light, regarding it as radiant matter, without reference to either of the contending theories.

[Page 265]

Light issues from the sun, pa.s.ses through millions of miles to the earth, and as it falls upon different substances, a variety of effects are apparent. There is a certain cla.s.s of bodies which obstruct the pa.s.sage of the rays of light, and where light is not, a shadow is cast, and the substance producing the shadow is said to be opaque. Wood, stone, the metals, charcoal, are all examples of opacity; whilst gla.s.s, talc, and horn allow a certain number of the rays to travel through their particles, and are therefore called transparent. Nature, however, never indulges in sudden extremes, and as no substance is so opaque as not (when reduced in thickness) to allow a certain amount of light to pa.s.s through its substance, so, on the other hand, however transparent a body may be, a greater or lesser number of the rays are always stopped, and hence opacity and transparency are regarded as two extremes of a long chain; being connected together by numerous intermediate links, they pa.s.s by insensible gradations the one into the other.

If a gold leaf, which is about the one two-hundredth part of an inch in thickness, is fixed on a gla.s.s plate and held before a light, a green colour is apparent, the gold appearing like a green, semi-transparent substance. When plates of gla.s.s are laid one above the other, and the flame of a candle observed through them, the light decreases enormously as the number of gla.s.s-plates are increased. Even in the air a considerable portion of light is intercepted. It has been estimated that of the horizontal sunbeams pa.s.sing through about two hundred miles of air, one two-thousandth part only reaches us, and that no sensible light can penetrate more than seven hundred feet deep into the sea; consequently, the vast depths discovered in laying the Atlantic telegraph must be in absolute darkness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 253.]

Light is thrown out on all sides from a luminous body like the spokes of a cart-wheel, and in the absence of any obstruction, the rays are distributed equally on all sides, diverging like the radii drawn from the centre of a circle. As a natural consequence arising from the divergence of each ray from the other, the intensity of light decreases as the distance from the luminous source increases, and _vice versa_.

Perhaps the best mechanical notion of this law is afforded by an ordinary fan; the point from which the sticks radiate, and where they all meet, may be [Page 266] termed the light; the sticks are the rays proceeding from it. (Fig. 253.)

The fan is held in one hand, and the first finger of the other can be made to touch all the sticks if placed sufficiently near to A; and supposing the sticks are called rays of light, the intensity must be great at that point, because all the rays fall upon it; but if the finger is removed towards the outer edge--viz., to B, it now only touches some three or four sticks; and pursuing the a.n.a.logy, a very few rays fall upon that point--hence the light has decreased in intensity, or to speak correctly, "Light decreases inversely as the squares of the distance." This law has already been ill.u.s.trated at page 13; and as an experiment, the rays from the oxy-hydrogen lantern may be permitted to pa.s.s out of a square hole (say two inches square), and should be thrown on to a transparent screen divided into squares by dark lines, so that the light at a certain distance illuminates one of them; then it will be found that at twice the distance, four may be illuminated, at three times nine, and so on. (Fig. 254.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 254. Lantern at the three distances from the transparent screen, which is divided into nine equal squares.]

Upon this law is based the use of photometers, or instruments for measuring light, and supposing it was required to estimate roughly the illuminating power of any lamp, as compared with the light of a wax candle six to the pound, the experiment should be conducted in a dark room, from which every other light but that from the lamp and candle under examination must be excluded.

The lamp, with the chimney only, is now placed say twelve feet from the wall, and a stick or rod is placed upright and about two inches from the latter, so that a shadow is cast on the wall; if the candle is now lighted and allowed to burn up properly, two shadows of the stick will be apparent, the one from the lamp being black and distinct, and the other from the candle extremely faint, until it is approached nearer the [Page 267] wall--say to within three feet--when the two shadows may be now equal in blackness. (Fig. 255.) After this is apparent to one or more persons, the distances of the lamp and candle from the wall are carefully measured, and being squared, and the greater divided by the lesser number, the quotient gives the illuminating power. For example:

The lamp was 12 feet from the wall 12 12 = 144.

The candle was 3 feet " 3 3 = 9.

9) 144 ---- 16

Therefore the illuminating power of the lamp is equal to 16 wax candles six to the pound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 255. A. The lamp. B. The candle. C. The rod throwing the two shadows, marked D and E, on a white wall or a sheet of paper.]