Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/772

754 index of the fluid. Some of the phenomena are, however, so curious as to have led excellent observers like Brewster to reject the theory of thin plates, and to assume the secretion of various kinds of coloring-matter. If the rim of a wine-glass be dipped in soapy water, and then held in a vertical position, horizontal bands soon begin to show at the top of the film, and extend themselves gradually downward. According to Brewster, these bands are not formed by the "subsidence and gradual thinning of the film," because they maintain their horizontal position when the glass is turned round its axis. The experiment is both easy and interesting; but the conclusion drawn from it can not be accepted. The fact is, that the various parts of the film can not quickly alter their thickness, and hence when the glass is rotated they rearrange themselves in order of superficial density, the thinner parts floating up over or through the thicker parts. Only thus can the tendency be satisfied for the center of gravity to assume the lowest possible position.

When the thickness of a film falls below a small fraction of the length of a wave of light, the color disappears and is replaced by an intense blackness. Professors Reinold and Rücker have recently made the remarkable observation that the whole of the black region, soon after its formation, is of uniform thickness, the passage from the black to the colored portions being exceedingly abrupt. By two independent methods they have determined the thickness of the black film to lie between seven and fourteen millionths of a millimetre; so that the thinnest films correspond to about one seventieth of a wave-length of light. The importance of these results in regard to molecular theory is too obvious to be insisted upon.

The beautiful inventions of the telephone and the phonograph, although in the main dependent upon principles long since established, have imparted a new interest to the study of acoustics. The former, apart from its uses in every-day life, has become in the hands of its inventor, Graham Bell, and of Hughes, an instrument of first-class scientific importance. The theory of its action is still in some respects obscure, as is shown by the comparative failure of the many attempts to improve it. In connection with some explanations that have been offered, we do well to remember that molecular changes in solid masses are inaudible in themselves, and can only be manifested to our ears by the generation of a to-and-fro motion of the external surface extending over a sensible area. If the surface of a solid remains undisturbed, our ears can tell us nothing of what goes on in the interior.

In theoretical acoustics progress has been steadily maintained, and many phenomena, which were obscure twenty or thirty years ago, have since received adequate explanation. If some important practical questions remain unsolved, one reason is, that they have not yet been definitely stated. Almost everything in connection with the ordinary