Page:1860 Fizeau en.djvu/15

 researches on air and water being no longer applicable, recourse was had to the following property of light established by the researches of Malus, Biot, and Brewster. When a ray of polarized light traverses a plate of glass, inclined towards its direction, the plane of polarization of the transmitted ray is in general inclined towards that of the incident ray. The magnitude of the rotation of the plane of polarization which is thus caused by the two refractions at the two surfaces of the plate of glass depends, first, upon the angle of incidence; secondly, upon the azimuth of the primitive plane of polarization with reference to the plane of incidence; and thirdly, upon the index of refraction of the glass forming the plate.

The angle of incidence and the azimuth of the primitive plane of polarization remaining the same, the rotation of this plane increases with the index of refraction of the glass plate. Now since this index is inversely proportional to the velocity with which waves of light are propagated through the glass, it follows that the magnitude of the rotation of the plane of polarization increases when the velocity with which light traverses the glass plate diminishes. The determination of any change in this velocity is, therefore, reduced to that of the corresponding change in the rotation of the plane of polarization.

In the first place it was deemed necessary to determine the change in the rotation which any given increase or decrease of the index of refraction could produce. By direct and comparative measurements of these indices and rotations, in the cases of flint and ordinary glass, it was found that when the index was increased by a small fraction, the rotation increased by a fraction 4½ times greater than the first.

The question next arises what change, according to the hypothesis of Fresnel, ought to be produced in the velocity of light when it traverses glass in a state of motion? The answer is based upon the following data.

The greatest velocity at our command is unquestionably that of the earth in its orbit. At noon, during the period of the solstices, for instance, the direction of this motion is horizontal and from east to west; from this it follows that when a plate of glass receives a ray of light coming from the west, it ought to be considered as really moving to meet the ray with the immense velocity of 31,000 metres per second. When, on the contrary, the incident ray comes from the cast, the glass plate must be considered as moving with this velocity in the same direction as that of the propagation of the waves of light, by which latter it is in reality overtaken.

Now, according to the theory of Fresnel, the difference between the velocities of the light in these two extreme cases would be