Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/114

96 the number of waves in its length with an equal degree of accuracy.

I will give the description of this process somewhat more in detail. In Fig. 72 mm' represents the first or the shorter standard viewed from above. This standard rests on a carriage which can be moved with a screw. The second standard nn' is twice as long as the first, and is placed as close as possible to the first and rigidly connected with some part of the frame. The mirror d is the reference plane. The two front mirrors of the two standards are adjusted to give fringes in white light with the reference plane. The central fringe in the white-light system is black; the others are colored. Hence we can always distinguish the central fringe. When the central fringes occur in the same relative position upon the two front mirrors m and n, then these two surfaces are exactly in the same plane. Now, if we move the reference plane backward through the length of the shorter standard, its surface will coincide with the mirror m', and at this instant fringes in white light will appear. Thus we have the means of knowing when the reference plane has been moved the length of the first standard to an order of accuracy of one-tenth or one-twentieth of a fringe.