Inventions; Science; Technology -- Social aspects; Technology and civilization
Let us now take the case of a third medium, the substance of which
puzzled the philosophers of ancient time and still continues to puzzle
the scientists of the present. This is the ether, that attenuated fluid
which fills all inter-stellar space and all space in masses and between
molecules and atoms not otherwise occupied by gross matter. When a
lamp is lit the light radiates from it in all directions in a wave
motion. That which transmits the light, the medium, is ether. By this
means energy is conveyed from the sun to the earth, and scientists
have calculated the speed of the ether vibrations called light at
186,400 miles per second. Thus a beam of light can travel from the sun
to the earth, a distance of between 92,000,000 and 95,000,000 miles
(according to season), in a little over eight minutes.
The fire messages sent by the ancients from hill to hill were ether
vibrations. The greater the fires, the greater were the vibrations and
consequently they carried farther to the receiver, which was the eye.
If a signal is to be sent a great distance by light the source of that
light must be correspondingly powerful in order to disturb the ether
sufficiently. The same principle holds good in wireless telegraphy.
If we wish to communicate to a great distance the ether must be
disturbed in proportion to the distance. The vibrations that produce
light are not sufficient in intensity to affect the ether in such a
way that signals can be carried to a distance. Other disturbances,
however, can be made in the ether, stronger than those which create
light. If we charge a wire with an electric current and place a magnetic
needle near it we find it moves the needle from one position to another.
This effect is called an electro-magnetic disturbance in the ether.
Again when we charge an insulated body with electricity we find that
it attracts any light substance indicating a material disturbance in
the ether. This is described as an electro-static disturbance or effect
and it is upon this that wireless telegraphy depends for its operations.
The late German physicist, Dr. Heinrich Hertz, Ph.D., was the first
to detect electrical waves in the ether. He set up the waves in the
ether by means of an electrical discharge from an induction coil. To
do this he employed a very simple means. He procured a short length
of wire with a brass knob at either end and bent around so as to form
an almost complete circle leaving only a small air gap between the
knobs. Each time there was a spark discharge from the induction coil,
the experimenter found that a small electric spark also generated
between the knobs of the wire loop, thus showing that electric waves
were projected through the ether. This discovery suggested to scientists
that such electric waves might be used as a means of transmitting
signals to a distance through the medium of the ether without connecting
wires.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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