Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/178

160 transmission of electrical and magnetic effects. Indeed, it is fairly well established that light is an electro-magnetic disturbance, like that due to a discharge from an induction coil or a condenser. Such electric waves can be reflected and refracted and polarized, and be made to produce vibrations and other changes, just as the light waves can. The only difference between them and the light waves is in the wave length.

This difference may be enormous or quite moderate. For example, a telegraphic wave, which is practically an electro-magnetic disturbance, may be as long as one thousand miles. The waves produced by the oscillations of a condenser, like a Leyden jar, may be as short as one hundred feet; the waves produced by a Hertz oscillator may be as short as one-tenth of an inch. Between this and the longest light wave there is not an enormous gap, for the latter has a length of about one-thousandth of an inch. Thus the difference between the