Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/496

480 actually come into contact, that they may strike each other, as two billiard-balls do, and then separate, according to the laws of elastic bodies. This theory is difficult of application when a molecule contains more than one atom, and, especially as it did not in the case of conduction of heat give results ratified by the experimental test. Maxwell abandoned it in favor of the idea that molecules repel each other according to the inverse fifth power of the distance. This second theory not only gave what at the time was believed to be the correct law for the dependence of the coefficient of conduction on temperature, but it also helped its author over a considerable mathematical difficulty. Further experiments have shaken our faith in the first of these two reasons, and the second is not sufficient to induce us to adopt without further inquiry the new law of action between two molecules.

It is exceedingly likely that the forces acting between two molecules when they are in close proximity to each other are partly due to, or at least modified by, the vibrations of the molecules themselves.' Such vibrations must, as in the case of sound, produce attractive and repulsive forces, and vibrating molecules will affect each other in a similar way as two tuning-forks would. Now, if the forces due to vibrations play any important part in a molecular encounter, the spectroscope will, I fancy, give us some information. If two molecules of the same kind encounter, the periods of vibration are the same, and the forces due to vibration will remain the same during, perhaps, the whole encounter. If two dissimilar molecules encounter, the relative phase of the vibrations, and hence the forces, will constantly change. Attraction will rapidly follow repulsion, and the whole average effect will be much smaller than in the case of two atoms of the same kind. We have no clear notion how such differences may act, and we must have recourse to experiment to decide whether any change in the effect of an encounter is observed when a molecule of a different kind is substituted for a molecule having the same periods of vibration.

When a body loses energy by radiation, that energy is restored during an encounter; the way in which this energy is restored will profoundly affect the vibrations of the molecule, and hence the observed spectrum. I have endeavored by means of theoretical considerations, or speculations, as you may perhaps feel inclined to call them, to lead you on to an experimental law which I believe to be of very great importance. The spectrum of a molecule is in fact variable at any given temperature, and changes if the molecule is surrounded by others of different nature.

Placing a molecule in an atmosphere of different nature without change of temperature produces the same effect as would he observed on lowering of temperature.

Let me give you one example. Lithium at the temperature of the Bunsen flame has almost exclusively one red line in its spectrum. At the high temperature of the arc or spark the red line becomes weak,