The crucible was filled now with a mass of molten metal that glowed
intensely white and seethed furiously. The slowly rising vapors told of
the rapid boiling, and their settling showed that their temperature was
too high to permit them to remain hot--the heat radiated away too fast.
For perhaps ten seconds this went on, then suddenly a new factor was
added to the performance. There was a sudden crashing arc and a blaze of
blue flame that swept in a cyclonic twisting motion inside the crucible.
The blaze of the arc, the intense brilliance of the incandescent metal,
and the weird light of the beam of radiation shifted in a fantastic play
of colors. It made a strange and impressive scene.
Suddenly the relay sounded again; the beam of radiance disappeared as
quickly as it had come. In an instant, the blue violet glare of the
relux plate had subsided to an angry red. The violent arcing had
stopped, and the metal was cooling rapidly. A heavy purplish vapor in
the crucible condensed on the walls into black, flakey crystals.
The elder Arcot was watching the scene in the screen curiously. "I
wonder--" he said slowly. "As a physicist, I should say it was
impossible, but if it did happen, I should imagine these would be the
results." He turned to look at Arcot junior. "Well, go on with your
exhibition, son."
"I want to know your ideas when we're through, though, Dad," said the
younger man. "The next on the program is a little more interesting,
perhaps. At least it demonstrates a more commercial aspect of the
thing."
The younger Morey was operating the controls of the handling robots. On
the screen, a machine rolled in on caterpillar treads, picked up the lux
case and its contents, and carried them off.
A minute later, it reappeared with a large electromagnet and a relux
plate, to which were attached a huge pair of silver busbars. The relux
plate was set in a stand directly in front of the projector, and the
big electromagnet was set up directly behind the relux plate. The magnet
leads were connected, and a coil, in the form of two toruses
intersecting at right angles enclosed in a form-fitting relux case, had
been connected to the heavy terminals of the relux plate. An ammeter and
a heavy coil of coronium wire were connected in series with the coil,
and a kilovoltmeter was connected across the terminals of the relux
plate.
As soon as the connections were completed, the robot backed swiftly out
of the room, and Arcot turned on the magnet and the ray projector.
Instantly, there was a sharp deflection of the kilovoltmeter.
"I haven't yet closed the switch leading into the coil," he explained,
"so there's no current." The ammeter needle hadn't moved.
Despite the fact that the voltmeter seemed to be shorted out by the
relux plate, the needle pointed steadily at twenty-two. Arcot changed
the current through the magnet, and the reading dropped to twenty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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