Estimating the total energy consumed during the year on earth for heat, light, power, etc., as about 15 millions of millions (= 15,000,000,000,000) of kilowatt-hours, Steinmetz tells us that 600 kilograms, or less than two-thirds of a ton, of “dirt,” if it could be disintegrated into energy, would supply all the heat, light and energy demand of the whole earth for a year. Several eminent physicists are now specializing on the problem of how to liberate and control intra-atomic energy for man’s uses—or abuses. Bearing in mind the present intellectual, moral and economic status of our “leaders of thought” and their followers, and remembering that one pound of common soil contains intra-atomic energy equal in destructive power to more than a million tons of dynamite, let us hope that the secret of releasing and “controlling” intra-atomic energy will not be discovered in our day and age. CHAPTER 6 PROOF THAT ELECTRONS ARE ATOMS OF ELECTRICITY THE ZEEMAN EFFECT Heinrich Hertz demonstrated in 1887 that he could produce in the “ether”—or at least in space—what are now known as “wireless waves,” by allowing a charge of electricity to oscillate to and fro. Larmor and Lorentz were, at the same time, endeavoring to formulate a theory which would account for the production of the far shorter light-waves. Lorentz supposed that each atom contained one or more infinitesimal particles, or electric charges (electrons), whose excessively rapid vibrations caused the emission of light-rays. Maxwell showed that there must be a close connection between light and electricity, a theory converted into demonstrable fact by the work of Hertz. That there is a similar relation between light and magnetism was the firm conviction of Faraday. In 1845, he placed a block of very dense glass between the poles of the most powerful electromagnet produceable at the time. Before turning on the switch, he allowed a beam of light to pass through the glass, producing “polarization”—a modification of light-rays resulting from their reflection (in this case from a crystalline substance), imparting to the beam a definite direction—the plane of vibration or plane of polarization. When the switch was closed, permitting the flow of the electric current, which produced the magnetic field, the beam of light was “rotated.” That is, the beam of light was “plane-polarized” by the crystal, and “rotated” by the magnetic field; i. e., now changed into two “circularly polarized” rays, one a left-handed motion and the other a right-handed motion (in the direction of the hands of a watch).