Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/214

204 the mind was prepared to detect any resemblance presenting itself between the action of light and that of waves. Great classes of optical phenomena accordingly appeared which could be accounted for in the most complete and satisfactory manner by assuming them to be produced by waves, and which could not be otherwise accounted for. It is because of its competence to explain all the phenomena of light that the wave-theory now receives universal acceptance on the part of scientific men.

Let me use an illustration. We infer from the flint implements recently found in such profusion all over England and in other countries, that they were produced by men, and also that the pyramids of Egypt were built by men, because, as far as our experience goes, nothing but men could form such implements or build such pyramids. In like manner, we infer from the phenomena of light the agency of waves, because, as far as our experience goes, no other agency could produce the phenomena.

Thus, in a general way, I have given you the conception and the grounds of the conception, which regards light as the product of wave-motion; but we must go further than this, and follow the conception into some of its details. We have all seen the waves of water, and we know they are of different sizes—different in length and different in height. When, therefore, you are told that the atoms of the sun, and of almost all other luminous bodies, vibrate at different rates, and produce waves of different sizes, your experience of water-waves will enable you to form a tolerably clear notion of what is meant.

As observed above, we have never seen the light-waves, but we judge of their presence, their position, and their magnitude, by their effects. Their lengths have been thus determined, and found to vary from about 1/30000th to 1/60000th of an inch.

But, besides those which produce light, the sun sends forth incessantly a multitude of waves which produce no light. The largest waves which the sun sends forth are of this non-luminous character, though they possess the highest heating power. A common sunbeam contains waves of all kinds, but it is possible to sift or filter the beam so as to intercept all its light, and to allow its obscure heat to pass unimpeded. For substances have been discovered which, while intensely opaque to the light-waves, are almost perfectly transparent to the others. On the other hand, it is possible, by the choice of proper substances, to intercept, in a great degree, the pure heat-waves, and to allow the pure light-waves free transmission. This last separation is, however, not so perfect as the first.

We shall learn presently how to detach the one class of waves from the other class, and to prove that waves competent to light a fire, fuse metal, or burn the hand like a hot solid, may exist in a perfectly dark place.

Supposing, then, that we withdraw, in the first instance, the large