Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of NatureWilliams, Henry Smith
Science
Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of Nature
Williams, Henry Smith
Industrial arts; Machinery
First, cases in which the current of electricity is used to transmit
energy from one place to another, and reproduce it in the form of molar
motion. The dynamo, in its endless applications, illustrates one phase
of such transportation of energy; and the call-bell, the telegraph,
and the telephone represent another phase. In one case a relatively
large quantity of electricity is necessary, in the other case a small
quantity; but the principle involved--that of electric and magnetic
induction--is the same in each.
The second method is that in which the current, generated by either
a dynamo or a battery of voltaic cells, is made to encounter a
relatively resistant medium in the course of its flow along the
conducting circuit. Such resistance leads to the production of active
vibrations among the particles of the resisting medium, producing the
phenomena of heat and, if the activity is sufficient, the phenomena of
light also. It will thus appear that in this class of cases, as in the
other, there is an actual re-transformation of electrical energy into
the energy of motion, only in this case the motion is that of molecules
and not of larger bodies. The principle is utilized in the electrical
heater, with which our electric street-cars are commonly provided,
and which is making its way in the household for purposes of general
heating and of cooking. It is utilized also in various factories,
where the very high degree of heat attainable with the electrical
furnace is employed to produce chemical dissociation and facilitate
chemical combinations. By this means, for example, a compound of
carbon and silicon, which is said to be the hardest known substance,
except the diamond, is produced in commercial quantities. A familiar
household illustration of the use of this principle is furnished by the
electric light. The carbon filament in the electric bulb furnishes such
resistance to the electric current that its particles are set violently
aquiver. Under ordinary conditions the oxygen of the air would
immediately unite with the carbon particles, volatilizing them, and
thus instantly destroying the filament; but the vacuum bulb excludes
the air, and thus gives relative permanency to the fragile thread.
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