Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/383

 have the form of semicircular tubes forming the two halves of a complete circle. Each tube is enlarged at each of its ends, so as to present a front of considerable area to the corresponding front at the end of the other tube. Thus at each end of one diameter of the circle there is a pair of opposing fronts, which are separated from each other by a thin sheet of the elastic solid.

The disturbance may be originated by forcing an excess of liquid into one of the enlarged ends of one of the cavities. This involves displacing the thin sheet of clastic solid, which separates it from the opposing front of the other cavity, and thus causing a corresponding deficiency of liquid in the enlarged end behind this front. The liquid will then surge backwards and forwards in each cavity between its enlarged ends; and, the motion being communicated to the elastic solid, vibrations will be generated resembling those which are produced in the aether by a Hertzian oscillator.

In the latter part of the year 1888 the researches of Hertz yielded more complete evidence of the similarity of electric waves to light. It was shown that the part of the radiation from an oscillator which was transmitted through an opening in a screen was propagated in a straight line, with diffraction effects. Of the other properties of light, polarization existed in the original radiation, as was evident from the manner in which it was produced; and polarization in other directions was obtained by passing the waves through a grating of parallel metallic wires; the component of the electric force parallel to the wires was absorbed, so that in the transmitted beam the electric vibration was at right angles to the wires. This effect obviously resembled the polarization of ordinary light by a plate of tourmaline. Refraction was obtained by passing the radiation through prisms of hard pitch.