Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/294

272 the whole bulb is hot, and I remove the lamp: see what happens. The rotation quickly diminishes. Now it is at rest; and now it is spinning round just as fast the reverse way. I can produce this reverse movement only with difficulty with a pith instrument. The action is due to the metal being a good conductor of heat. As it absorbs heat it moves one way; as it radiates heat it moves the opposite way.

At first I made these instruments of the very lightest material possible, some of them not weighing more than half a grain; and, where extreme sensitiveness is required, lightness is essential. But the force which carries them round is quite strong enough to move a much greater weight. Thus the metallic instrument I have just experimented with weighs over thirteen grains, and here is one still heavier, made of four pieces of looking-glass blacked on the silvered side, which are quickly sent round by the impact of this imponderable agent, and flash the rays of light all round the room when the electric lamp is turned on the instrument.

Before dismissing this instrument let me show one more experiment. I place the looking-glass and the metal radiometer side by side, and, screening the light from them, they come almost to rest. Their temperature is the same as that of the room. What will



if I suddenly chill them? I pour a few drops of ether on each of the bulbs. Both instruments begin to revolve. But notice the difference. While the movement in the case of the metal radiometer is direct, that of the looking-glass instrument is reverse. And yet to a candle they both rotate the same way, the black being repelled.