Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891Various
History
Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
[Footnote 6: In a valuable paper read before the Royal Society,
November 20, 1890, by Professors Liveing and Dewar, on finely divided
metallic dust thrown off the surface of various electrodes, in vacuum
tubes, they find not only that dust, however fine, suspended in a gas
will not act like gaseous matter in becoming luminous with its
characteristic spectrum in an electric discharge, but that it is
driven with extraordinary rapidity out of the course of the
discharge.]
Here is a tube (Fig. 15, P=0.00068 millimeter, or 0.9 M), with two
negative electrodes, AA', so placed as to protect two luminous spots
on the phosphorescent glass of the tube. One electrode, A', is of pure
silver, a volatile metal; the other, A, is of aluminum, practically
non-volatile. A quantity of "electrode matter" will be shot off from
the silver pole, and practically none from the aluminum pole; but you
see that in each case the phosphorescence, CC', is identical. Had the
radiant electrode matter been the active agent, the more intense
phosphorescence would proceed from the more volatile pole.
A drawing of another experimental piece of apparatus is shown in Fig.
16. A pear-shaped bulb of German glass has near the small end an inner
concave negative pole, A, of pure silver, so mounted that its
inverted image is thrown upon the opposite end of the tube. In front
of this pole is a screen of mica, C, having a small hole in the
center, so that only a narrow pencil of rays from the silver pole can
pass through, forming a bright spot, D, at the far end of the bulb.
The exhaustion is about the same as in the previous tube, and the
current has been allowed to pass continuously for many hours so as to
drive off a certain portion of the silver electrode; and upon
examination it is found that the silver has all been deposited in the
immediate neighborhood of the pole; while the spot, D, at the far end
of the tube, that has been continuously glowing with phosphorescent
light, is practically free from silver.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--PRESSURE = 0.00068 MM. = 0.9 M.]
The experiment is too lengthy for me to repeat it here, so I shall not
attempt it; but I have on the table the results for examination.
The identity of action of silver and aluminum in the first case, and
the non-projection of silver in this second instance, are in
themselves sufficient to condemn Dr. Puluj's hypotheses, since they
prove that phosphorescence is independent of the material of the
negative electrode. In front of me is a set of tubes that to my mind
puts the matter wholly beyond doubt. The tubes contain no inside
electrodes with the residual gaseous molecules; and with them I will
proceed to give some of the most striking radiant-matter experiments
without any inner metallic poles at all.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--PRESSURE = 0.00068 MM. = 0.9 M.]
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