Page:BraceStLouis1904.djvu/7

Rh the anticipated displacement calculated from the purely kinetical principle of Döppler. The experiments of the former, as a first order test, on the rotation of the plane of polarization of a ray after passing through a pile of plates has perhaps offered the greatest difficulty to the exponents of both theories in reconciling the observations with the results which should follow from each theory. In this experiment, performed in 1859, the optical systems was mounted so as to be rotated about a vertical axis alternately from east to west, or vice versa. This system consisted of the usual polarizing nicol or sensitive tint-system and analyzing nicol between which were placed several piles of plates and compensating systems for producing the rotations and the magnifying of the same, and also for compensating for the rotary dispersion and elliptic polarization of the transmitted light which was polarized in an azimuth of 45°. In a series of observations extending over some time the mean of the rotations of the plane of polarization showed a maximum excess in the direction toward the west at noon and at the time of the solstice. It is to be noted that light from a heliostat was reflected into the system alternately by two fixed mirrors when the system was rotated. This required an interruption and readjustment of the heliostat during a single observation, i. e. from east to west and west to east, the difference in the setting of the analyzer in the two positions to give the same field of view being, of course, the effect sought for. Fizeau refers to the irregularities arising from successive settings of the heliostat. The calculated effect was much below that which could have been observed directly with the usual polarizing system. To magnify any such effect, a second system of plates was used which gave an amplification as high as eighty times. Thus any residual rotation from whatever cause would receive the corresponding amplifications. Now, in experiments with polarizing systems using sunlight as a source of illumination, it has frequently been noted that any shift in the direction of the light through the apparatus, either due to a change in the direction of the beam (arriving, say, from the heliostat) or to a shift in the optical system itself, produced a change in the field of view, whether with a half-shade system or otherwise. In the former the match was destroyed, the change being of an order much greater than that which Fizeau anticipated from calculation. Further, with such limited beams of light, a mere shift of the eye may produce an effect of similar magnitude. Hence, in all polariscopic experiments where sunlight is used, it is absolutely essential that, during any single observation, the ray of light pass through the system and into the eye over exactly the same path. This Fizeau failed to carry out, and this is entirely sufficient to explain the very great discrepancies in his various series of observations, and probably the apparent constant difference in the results of his settings in the two directions.