Invisible Radiations



INVISIBLE RADIATIONS

(1) Electric Waves and Radio-activity

415. Oscillatory Nature of the Spark from a Leyden Jar.?In studying sound (Art. 339), the sympathetic vibration of two tuning forks having the same rate of vibration was given as an illustration of resonance. The conditions for obtaining electrical resonance by the use of two Leyden jars are given in the following experiment.
Join the two coats of a Leyden jar (Fig. 413) to a loop of wire L, the sliding crosspiece M being arranged so that the length of the loop may be changed as desired. Also place a strip of tinfoil in contact with the inner coating and bring it over to within about a millimeter of the outer coating as indicated at G. Now join the outer coating of another exactly similar jar A to a wire loop of fixed length, the end of the loop being separated from the knob connected to the inner coating, a short distance at P. Place the jars near each other with the wire loops parallel and connect coatings of A to the terminals of a static machine or an induction coil. At each discharge between the knobs at P, a spark will appear in the other jar at G, if the crosspiece M is so adjusted that the areas of the two loops are exactly equal. When the wire M is moved so as to make the areas of the two loops quite unequal, the spark at G disappears.
Fig. 413.
The experiment just described shows that two electrical circuits can be tuned by adjusting their lengths, just as[Pg 449] two tuning forks may be made sympathetic by adjusting their lengths. This fact indicates that the discharge of the Leyden jar is oscillatory, since resonance can plainly not be secured except between bodies having natural periods of vibration. This same fact is also shown by examining the discharge of a Leyden jar as it appears when viewed in a rapidly revolving mirror. (See Fig. 414.) The appearance in the mirror shows that the discharge is made up of a number of sparks, often a dozen or more, vibrating back and forth until they finally come to rest. The time of one vibration varies from one millionth to one hundred millionth of a second, depending on the space between the discharging balls and the size of the jars.
Fig. 414.?Photograph of the oscillatory discharge of a Leyden jar.
The discharge of a Leyden jar or of another condenser sets up ether waves that have the speed of light. Heinrich Hertz in Germany first proved this in 1888. These waves are now known as Hertzian waves. The length of these varies from 3 cm. to several miles, depending upon the size and conditions of the discharging circuit.
Fig. 415.?A coherer.
416. The Coherer.?The coherer is a device for detecting electric waves. It consists of a glass tube with metal filings loosely packed between two metal plugs that fit the tube closely. (See Fig. 415.) These filings offer a high resistance to the passage of an electric current, but when electric waves pass through the filings these cohere and allow a weak current to pass through. This current[Pg 450] may be strong enough to operate a relay connected with a sounder or bell that gives audible signals. If the tube be tapped the filings will be disturbed and the resistance again made so high that no current can pass through.
417. Wireless Telegraphy.?In 1894 Marconi, then a young man of twenty, while making some experiments with electrical discharges discovered that the coherer would detect electrical waves at a considerable distance from their source and that by the use of a telegraph key the "dots and dashes" of the telegraph code could be reproduced by a sounder attached to a relay. At present the coherer is used principally in laboratory apparatus, as much more sensitive detectors are now available for commercial work. The essential parts of a modern wireless telegraph apparatus as used in many commercial stations are shown in Fig. 416.
Alternating current at 110 volts is sent into the primary, P, of a transformer, the secondary, S, of which produces a potential of 5000 to 20,000 volts. The secondary charges a condenser until its potential becomes high enough to produce a discharge across a spark gap, SG. This discharge is oscillatory, the frequency being at the rate of about one million a second, depending upon the capacity of the condenser and the induction of the circuit.
These oscillations pass through the primary of the oscillation transformer, inducing in the secondary, electric oscillations which surge back and forth through the antenn?, or aerial wires, A. These oscillations set up the "wireless waves." The production of these waves is explained as follows: An electric current in a wire sets up a magnetic field spreading out about the conductor; when the current stops the field returns to the conductor and disappears. The oscillations in the antenn?, however, have such a high frequency, of the order of a million a second, that when one surge of electricity sets up a magnetic field, the reverse surge immediately following sets up an opposite magnetic field before the first field can return to the wire. Under these conditions a succession of oppositely directed magnetic fields are produced which move out from the antenn?[Pg 451] with the speed of light and induce electric oscillations in any conductors cut by them.
Fig. 416.?Diagram of a commercial wireless telegraph apparatus.
While the electric waves are radiated in all directions from the aerial, the length of the waves set up is approximately four times the combined length of the aerial wires and the "lead in" connection to the oscillation transformer.
[Pg 452]
The electric waves induce effective electrical oscillations in the aerial of the receiving station, even at distances of hundreds of miles, provided the receiving transformer, RT, is "tuned" in resonance with the transmitting apparatus by adjustments of the variable condenser, VC, and the loading coil, L. The detector of these oscillations in the receiving transformer is simply a crystal of silicon or carborundum, D, in series with two telephone receivers, Ph. The crystal detector permits the electric oscillations to pass through it in one direction only. If the crystal did not possess this property, the telephone could not be used as a receiver as it cannot respond to high frequency oscillations. While one spark passes at SG, an intermittent current passes through the receiver in one direction. Since some 300 to 1200 sparks pass each second at SG while the key, K, is closed, the operator at Ph hears a musical note of this frequency as long as K is depressed. Short and long tones then correspond to the dots and dashes of ordinary telegraphy. In order to maintain a uniform tone a rotary spark gap, as shown, is often used. This insures a tone of fixed pitch by making uniform the rate of producing sparks.
The Continental instead of the Morse code of signals is generally employed in wireless telegraphy, since the former employs only dots and dashes. The latter code employs, in addition to dots and dashes, spaces which have sometimes caused confusion in receiving wireless messages. The United States government has adopted the regulations of the International Radio Congress which directs that commercial companies shall use wave lengths between 300 and 600 or above 1600 meters. Amateurs may use wave lengths less than 200 meters and no others, while the government reserves the right to wave lengths of 600 to 1600 meters. See p. 459 for Continental telegraph code.
418. Discharges in Rarefied Air.?Fig. 417 represents a glass tube 60 or more centimeters long, attached to an air pump. Connect the ends of the tube to the terminals of a static machine or of an induction coil, a-b. At first no sparks will pass between a and f, because of the high[Pg 453] resistance of the air in the tube. Upon exhausting the air in the tube, however, the discharge begins to pass through it instead of between a and b. This shows that an electrical discharge will pass more readily through a partial vacuum than through air at ordinary pressure. As the air becomes more and more exhausted, the character of the discharge changes. At first it is a faint spark, gradually changing until it becomes a glow extending from one terminal to the other and nearly filling the tube.
Fig. 417.?An Aurora tube.
Geissler tubes are tubes like the above. They are usually made of different kinds of glass twisted into various shapes to produce beautiful color effects. The aurora borealis or northern light is supposed to be electric discharges through rarefied air at the height of from 60 to 100 miles above the earth's magnetic poles. (See Fig. 418.)
Fig. 418.?Aurora Borealis.
419. Cathode Rays.?When the tube in Art. 420 is exhausted to a pressure of 0.001 mm., or a little less than one millionth of an atmosphere, the character of the discharge[Pg 454] is entirely changed. The tube becomes filled with a yellowish green phosphorescent light. This is produced by what are called cathode rays striking the glass walls of the tube. These rays are called cathode rays because they come from the cathode of the tube. They are invisible and that they travel in straight lines is shown by the shadow obtained by using a tube with a screen (Fig. 419).
Fig. 419.?A cathode ray tube.
420. "X" Rays.?In 1895, Professor R?ntgen of Wurtzburg, Germany, discovered that when the cathode rays strike the walls of the tube or any solid within it they excite a form of invisible radiation. This radiation is called R?ntgen rays, or more commonly, "X" rays. Careful experiments show that they travel in straight lines, and that they can not be reflected or refracted as light waves are. They pass through glass and opaque objects such as flesh, cardboard, cloth, leather, etc., but not through metallic substances. The tube in Fig. 420 has a screen covered with crystals which become luminous when struck by the cathode rays. On bringing a magnet near the tube the luminous line is raised or lowered showing that the magnetic field affects the stream of cathode rays, attracting it when in one position but repelling it when in the reverse direction. The cathode rays which cause the bright line possess a negative charge of electricity. They are now believed to be electrons shot off from the surface of the cathode with speeds that may reach 100,000 miles a second. "X" rays possess no electrical charge whatever and cannot be deflected by a magnet. They produce the same effect on a photograph plate as light does, only more slowly. Hence, they can be used in taking "X" ray[Pg 455] photographs. Certain crystals, like barium platinum cyanide, fluoresce when struck by the "X" rays. The fluoroscope is the name given to a light-tight box closed at one end by a cardboard covered with these crystals (Fig.[Pg 456] 421). On looking into the fluoroscope with an opaque object such as the hand placed between the screen and the "X" ray tube, a shadow of the bones of the hand can be seen upon the screen of the fluoroscope. (See Fig. 422.)
Fig. 420.?The stream of cathode rays is deflected by a magnet.
Fig. 421.?A fluoroscope.
Fig. 422.?A view of the "shadow" of a hand as seen in a fluoroscope.
A special form of the tube is used. (See Fig. 423.) In this tube a platinum disc is placed at the focus of the concave cathode. This concentrates the "X" rays in one direction. It is now generally believed that "X" rays are waves in the ether set up by the sudden stoppage of the cathode rays at the platinum anode.
Fig. 423.?An "X" ray tube.
421. The Electromagnetic Theory of Light.?The study of electric waves has shown that they are similar to light waves in many respects: (a) they have the same velocity; (b) they can be reflected and refracted. The main difference is in their length, light waves being very much shorter. In 1864 James Clerk Maxwell, an English physicist, proposed the theory that ether waves could be produced by electrical means and that light waves are electromagnetic. In 1888 Hertz proved by his experiments that ether waves having the same velocity as light could be produced in this way. It is now the general belief that light waves are ether waves produced by the vibrations of the electrons within the atoms and that they consist of electromagnetic waves in the ether.
422. Radio-activity.?In 1896 Henri Becquerel of Paris discovered that uranium and its compounds emit a form of radiation that produces an effect upon a photographic plate that is similar to that resulting from the action of "X" rays. These rays are often called Becquerel rays in[Pg 457] honor of their discoverer. The property of emitting such rays is called radio-activity, and the substances producing them are called radio-active.
In 1898, Professor and Mme. Curie after an investigation of all the elements found that thorium, one of the chief constituents of incandescent gas mantles, together with its compounds, was also radio-active. This may be shown by the following experiment:
Place a flattened gas mantle upon a photographic plate and leave in a light tight-box for several days. Upon developing the plate in the usual way a distinct image of the mantle will be found upon the plate.
423. Radium.?Mme. Curie discovered also that pitch-blende possessed much greater radio-active power than either thorium or uranium. After prolonged chemical experiments she obtained from several tons of the ore a few milligrams of a substance more than a million times as active as thorium or uranium. She called this new substance radium. Radium is continually being decomposed, this decomposition being accompanied by the production of a great deal of heat. It has been calculated that it will take about 300 years for a particle of radium to be entirely decomposed and separated into other substances. It is also believed that radium itself is the product of the decomposition of uranium, atomic weight 238, and that the final product of successive decompositions may be some inert metal, like lead, atomic weight 207.
The radiation given off by radio-active substances consists of three kinds: (A) Positively charged particles of helium called alpha rays: (B) negatively charged particles called beta rays: (C) gamma rays.
The alpha rays have little penetrating power, a sheet[Pg 458] of paper or a sheet of aluminum 0.05 mm. stopping them. Upon losing their charges they become atoms of helium. Their velocity is about 1/10 of that of light or 18,000 miles a second. The spinthariscope is a little instrument devised by Sir Williams Crookes in 1903 to show direct evidence that particles are continually being shot off from radium. In this instrument (Fig. 424), a speck of radium R is placed on the under side of a wire placed a few millimeters above a screen S covered with crystals of zinc sulphide. Looking in the dark at this screen through the lens L, a continuous succession of sparks is seen like a swarm of fireflies on a warm summer night. Each flash is due to an alpha particle striking the screen. The beta rays are supposed to be cathode rays or electrons with velocities of from 40,000 to 170,000 miles a second. The gamma rays are supposed to be "X" rays produced by the beta rays striking solid objects.
Fig. 424.?A spinthariscope.
424. The discovery of radio-activity has revolutionized the ideas of the constitution of matter. Further, the results of experiments upon radio-active materials reveals the presence of immense quantities of sub-atomic energy. If man ever discovers a means of utilizing this, he will enter a storehouse of energy of far greater extent and value than any of which he has as yet made use. A consideration of this unexplored region gives zest to the work of those who day by day are striving to understand and control forces of nature.

Important Topics

1. Oscillatory nature of discharge of Leyden jar. Proofs.
2. Wireless telegraphy and telephony.
3. Electrical discharges in rarefied gases.
[Pg 459]
4. Cathode and "X" rays.
5. Electromagnetic theory of light.
6. Radio activity and radium.
CONTINENTAL TELEGRAPH CODE

A . - J . - - - S . . .
B - . . . K - . - T -
C - . - . L . - . . U . . -
D - . . M - - V . . . -
E . N - . W . - -
F . . - . O - - - X - . . -
G - - . P .- - . Y - . - -
H . . . . Q - - . - Z - - . .
I . . R . - .

Period Interrogation Exclamation
. . . . . . . . - - . . - - . . - -

1 . - - - - 2 . . - - - 3 . . . - -
4 . . . . - 5 . . . . . 6 - . . . . 7 - - . . .
8 - - - . . 9 - - - - . 0 - - - - -




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