Popular Scientific Recreations: in Natural Philosphy, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, etc., etc., etc.Tissandier, Gaston
Science
Popular Scientific Recreations: in Natural Philosphy, Astronomy, Geology, Chemistry, etc., etc., etc.
Tissandier, Gaston
Scientific recreations
Fraunhofer substituted a telescope for the lens and the screen, and
called his instrument a SPECTROSCOPE. He then observed the lines, which
are always in the same position in the solar spectrum. The principal of
them he designated as A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. The first three are in
the red part of the spectrum; one in the yellow, then one in the green;
F comes between green and blue, G in the indigo-blue, and H in the
violet. But these by no means exhaust the lines now visible. Year by
year the study of Spectrum Analysis has been perfected more and more,
and now we are aware of more than three thousand “lines” existing in
the solar spectrum. The spectra of the moon and planets contain similar
dark lines as are seen in the solar spectrum, but the fixed stars show
different lines. By spectrum analysis we know the various constituents
of the sun’s atmosphere, and we can fix the result of our observations
made by means of the Spectroscope in the photographic camera. By
the more recent discoveries great studies have been made in “solar
chemistry.”
What can we do with the Spectroscope, or rather, What can we _not_ do?
By Spectroscopy we can find out, and have already far advanced upon
our path of discovery, “the measure of the sun’s rotation, the speed
and direction of the fierce tornados which sweep over its surface, and
give rise to the ‘maelstroms’ we term ‘sunspots,’ and the mighty alps
of glowing gas that shoot far beyond the visible orb, ever changing
their form and size; even the temperature and pressure of the several
layers and their fluctuations are in process of being defined and
determined.” This is what science is doing for us, and when we have
actually succeeded in ascertaining the weather at various depths in
the atmosphere of the sun, we shall be able to predict our own, which
depends so much upon the sun. Last year (1880) Professor Adams, in his
address to the British Association, showed that magnetic disturbances,
identical in kind, took place at places widely apart simultaneously.
He argues that the cause of these identical disturbances must be far
removed from the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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