Popular Science Monthly/Volume 13/May 1878/The Radiometer: A Fresh Evidence of a Molecular Universe
THE
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.
MAY, 1878.
| THE RADIOMETER: A FRESH EVIDENCE OF A MOLECULAR UNIVERSE.[1] |
By JOSIAH P. COOKE, Jr.
ERVING PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
NO one who is not familiar with the history of physical science can appreciate how very modern are those grand conceptions which add so much to the loftiness of scientific studies; and of the many who, on one of our starlit nights, look up into the depths of space, and are awed by the thoughts of that immensity which come crowding upon the mind, there are few, I imagine, who realize the fact that almost all the knowledge, which gives such great sublimity to that sight, is the result of comparatively recent scientific investigation; and that the most elementary student can now gain conceptions of the immensity of the universe of which the fathers of astronomy never dreamed. And how very grand are the familiar astronomical facts which the sight of the starry heavens suggests!
Those brilliant points are all suns like the one which forms the centre of our system, and around which our earth revolves; yet so inconceivably remote, that although moving through space with an incredible velocity they have not materially changed their relative position since recorded observations began. Compared with their distance, the distance of our own sun—92,000,000—miles seems as nothing; yet how inconceivable even that distance is when we endeavor to mete it out with our terrestrial standards! For, if, when Copernicus—the great father of modern astronomy—died, in 1543, just at the close of the Protestant Reformation, a messenger had started for the sun, and traveled ever since with the velocity of a railroad-train—thirty miles an hour—he would not yet have reached his destination!
Evidently, then, no standards, which like our ordinary measures bear a simple or at least a conceivable relation to the dimensions of our own bodies, can help us to stretch a line in such a universe. We must seek for some magnitude which is commensurate with these immensities of space; and, in the wonderfully rapid motion of light, astronomy furnishes us with a suitable standard. By the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites the astronomers have determined that this mysterious effluence reaches us from the sun in eight minutes and a half, and therefore must travel through space with the incredible velocity—shall I dare to name it—of 186,000 miles in a second of time! Yet inconceivably rapid as this motion is, capable of girdling the earth nearly eight times in a single second, the very nearest of the fixed stars, a Centauri, is so remote that the light by which it will be seen in the southern heavens tonight, near that magnificent constellation the Southern Cross, must have started on its journey three years and a half ago. But this light comes from merely the threshold of the stellar universe; and the telescope reveals to us stars so distant that, had they been blotted out of existence when history began, the tidings of the event could not yet have reached the earth!
Compare now with these grand conceptions the popular belief of only a few centuries back. Where we look into the infinite depths, our Puritan forefathers saw only a solid dome hemming in the earth and skies, and through whose opened doors the rain descended. They regarded the sun and moon merely as great luminaries set in this firmament to rule the day and night, and to their understandings the stars served no better purpose than the spangles which glitter on the azure ceiling of many a modern church. The great work of Copernicus, "De Orbium Cœlestium Revolutionibus," which was destined, ultimately, to overthrow the crude cosmography which Christianity had inherited from Judaism, was not published until just at the close of the author's life in 1543, the date before mentioned. The telescope, which was required to fully convince the world of its previous error, was not invented until more than half a century later, and it was not until 1835 that Struve detected the parallax of a Lyræ. The measurement of this parallax, together with Bessel's determination of the parallax of 61 Cygni, and Henderson's that of a Centauri, at about the same time, gave us our first accurate knowledge of the distances of the fixed stars.
To the thought I have endeavored to express I must add another, before I can draw the lesson which I wish to teach. Great scientific truths become popularized very slowly, and, after they have been thoroughly worked out by the investigators, it is often many years before they become a part of the current knowledge of mankind. It was fully a century after Copernicus died, with his great volume—still wet from the press of Nuremburg—in his hands, before the Copernican theory was generally accepted even by the learned; and the intolerant spirit with which this work was received, and the persecution which Galileo encountered more than half a century later, were due solely to the circumstance that the new theory tended to subvert the popular faith in the cosmography of the Church. In modern times, with the many popular expositors of science, the diffusion of new truth is more rapid; but even now there is always a long interval after any great discovery in abstract science before the new conception is translated into the language of common life, so that it can be apprehended by the mass even of educated men.
I have thus dwelt on what must be familiar facts in the past history of astronomy, because they illustrate and will help you to realize the present condition of a much younger branch of physical science: for in the transition-period I have described there exists now a conception which opens a vision into the microcosmos beneath us as extensive and as grand as that which the Copernican theory revealed into the macrocosmos above us.
The conception to which I refer will be at once suggested to every scientific scholar by the word molecule. This word is a Latin diminutive, which means, primarily, a small mass of matter; and although heretofore often applied in mechanics to the indefinitely small particles of a body between which the attractive Or repulsive forces might be supposed to act, it has only recently acquired the exact significance with which we now use it.
In attempting to discover the original usage of the word molecule, I was surprised to find that it was apparently first introduced into science by the great French naturalist, Buffon, who employed the term in a very peculiar sense. Buffon does not seem to have been troubled with the problem which so engrosses our modern naturalists—how the vegetable and animal kingdoms were developed into their present condition but he was greatly exercised by an equally difficult problem, which seems to have been lost sight of in the present controversy, and which is just as obscure to-day as it was in Buffon's time, at the close of the last century, and that is, Why species are so persistent in Nature; why the acorn always grows into the oak, and why every creature always produces of its kind. And, if you will reflect upon it, I am sure you will conclude that this last is by far the more fundamental problem of the two, and one which necessarily includes the first. That of two eggs, in which no anatomist can discover any structural difference, the one should, in a few short years, develop an intelligence like Newton's, while the other soon ends in a Guinea-pig, is certainly a greater mystery than that, in the course of unnumbered ages, monkeys, by insensible gradations, should grow into men.
In order to explain the remarkable constancy of species, Buffon advanced a theory which, when freed from a good deal that was fanciful, may be expressed thus: The attributes of every species, whether of plants or of animals, reside in their ultimate particles, or, to use a more philosophical but less familiar word, inhere in these particles, which Buffon names organic molecules. According to Buffon, the oak owes all the peculiarities of its organization to the special oak-molecules of which it consists; and so all the differences in the vegetable or animal kingdom, from the lowest to the highest species, depend on fundamental peculiarities with which their respective molecules were primarily endowed. There must, of course, be as many kinds of molecules as there are different species of living beings; but, while the molecules of the same species were supposed to be exactly alike and to have a strong affinity or attraction for each other, those of different species were assumed to be inherently distinct and to have no such affinities. Buffon further assumed that these molecules of organic Nature were diffused more or less widely through the atmosphere and through the soil, arid that the acorn grew to the oak simply because, consisting itself of oak-molecules, it could draw only oak-molecules from the surrounding media.
With our present knowledge of the chemical constitution of organic beings, we can find a great deal that is both fantastic and absurd in this theory of Buffon, but it must be remembered that the science of chemistry is almost wholly a growth of the present century, while Buffon died in 1788; and, if we look at the theory solely from the standpoint of his knowledge, we shall find in it much that was worthy of this great man. Indeed, in our time the essential features of the theory of Buffon have been transferred from natural history to chemistry almost unchanged.
According to our modern chemistry, the qualities of every substance reside or inhere in its molecules. Take this lump of sugar. It has certain qualities with which every one is familiar. Are those qualities attributes of the lump or of its parts? Certainly of its parts. For, if we break up the lump, the smallest particles will still taste sweet and show all the characteristics of sugar. Could we then carry on this subdivision indefinitely provided only we had senses or tests delicate enough to recognize the qualities of sugar in the resulting particles? To this question, modern chemistry answers decidedly: No! You would before long reach the smallest mass that can have the qualities of sugar. You would have no difficulty in breaking up these masses, but you would then obtain not smaller particles of sugar, but particles of those utterly different substances which we call carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, in a word particles of the elementary substances of which sugar consists. These ultimate particles of sugar Ave call the molecules of sugar, and thus we come to the present chemical definition of a molecule, "The smallest particles of a substance in which its qualities inhere," which, as you see, is a reproduction of Buffon's idea, although applied to matter and not to organism.
A lump of sugar, then, has its peculiar qualities because it is an aggregate of molecules which have those qualities, and a lump of salt differs from a lump of sugar simply because the molecules of salt differ from those of sugar, and so with every other substance. There are as many kinds of molecules in Nature as there are different substances, but all the molecules of the same substance are absolutely alike in every respect.
Thus far, as you see, we are merely reviving in a different association the old ideas of Buffon. But just at this point comes in a new conception, which gives far greater grandeur to our modern theory: for we conceive that those smallest particles in which the qualities of a substance inhere are definite bodies or systems of bodies moving in space, and that a lump of sugar is a universe of moving worlds.
If on a clear night you direct a telescope to one of the many star-clusters of our northern heavens, you will have presented to the eye as good a diagram as we can at present draw of what we suppose would, under certain circumstances, be seen in a lump of sugar if we could look into the molecular universe with the same facility with which the telescope penetrates the depths of space. Do you tell me that the absurdities of Buffon were wisdom when compared with such wild speculations as these? The criticism is simply what I expected, and I must remind you that, as I intimated at the outset, this conception of modern science is in the transition period of which I then spoke, and, although very familiar to scientific scholars, has not yet been grasped by the popular mind. I can, further, only add that, wild as it may appear, the idea is the growth of legitimate scientific investigation, and express my conviction that it will soon become as much a part of the popular belief as those grand conceptions of astronomy to which I have referred. Do you rejoin that we can see the suns in a stellar cluster, but cannot even begin to see the molecules? I must again remind you that, in fact, you only see points of light in the field of the telescope, and that your knowledge that these points are immensely distant suns is an inference of astronomical science; and further that our knowledge—if I may so call our confident belief—that the lump of sugar is an aggregate of moving molecules is an equally legitimate inference of molecular mechanics, a science which, although so much newer, is as positive a field of study as astronomy. Moreover, sight is not the only avenue to knowledge; and, although our material limitations forbid us to expect that the microscope will ever be able to penetrate the molecular universe, yet we feel assured that we have been able by strictly experimental methods to weigh molecular masses, and measure molecular magnitudes, with as much accuracy as those of the fixed stars.
Of all forms of matter the gas has the simplest molecular structure, and, as might be anticipated, our knowledge of molecular magnitudes is as yet chiefly confined to materials of this class. I have given below some of the results which have been obtained in regard to the molecular magnitudes of hydrogen gas, one of the best studied of this class of substances; and, although the vast numbers are as inconceivable as are those of astronomy, they cannot fail to impress you with the reality of the magnitudes they represent. I take hydrogen gas for my illustration rather than air, because our atmosphere is a mixture of two gases, oxygen and nitrogen, and therefore its condition is less simple than that of a perfectly homogeneous material like hydrogen. The molecular dimensions of other substances, although varying very greatly in their relative values, are of the same order as these.[2]
Dimensions of Hydrogen Molecules calculated for Temperature of Melting Ice and for the Mean Height of the Barometer at the Sea-Level.
Mean velocity, 6,099 feet a second.
Mean path, 31 ten-millionths of an inch.
Collisions, 17,750 millions each second.
Diameter, 438,000, side by side, measure 1100 of an inch.
Mass, 14 (millions{3}) weigh 11000 of a grain.
Gas-volume, 311 (millions3) fill one cubic inch.
To explain how the values here presented were obtained would be out of place in a popular lecture,[3] but a few words in regard to two or three of the data are required to elucidate the subject of this lecture.
First, then, in regard to the mass or weight of the molecules. So far as their relative values are concerned, chemistry gives us the means of determining the molecular weights with very great accuracy; but when we attempt to estimate their weights in fractions of a grain the smallest of our common standards we cannot expect precision, simply because the magnitudes compared are of such a different order; and the same is true of most of the other absolute dimensions, such as the diameter and volume of the molecules. We only regard the values given in our table as a very rough estimate, but still we have good grounds for believing that they are sufficiently accurate to give us a true idea of the order of the quantities with which we are dealing; and it will be seen that although the numbers required to express the relations to our ordinary standards are so large, these molecular magnitudes are no more removed from us on the one side than are those of astronomy on the other.
Passing next to the velocity of the molecular motion, we find in that a quantity which, although large, is commensurate with the velocity of sound, the velocity of a rifle-ball, and the velocities of many other motions with which we are familiar. We are, therefore, not comparing, as before, quantities of an utterly different order, and we have confidence that we have been able to determine the value within very narrow limits of error. But how surprising the result is! Those molecules of hydrogen are constantly moving to and fro with this great velocity, and not only are the molecules of all aëriform substances moving at similar, although differing, rates, but the same is equally true of the molecules of every substance, whatever may be its state of aggregation.
The gas is the simplest molecular condition of matter, because in this state the molecules are so far separated from each other that their motions are not influenced by mutual attractions. Hence, in accordance with the well-known laws of motion, gas-molecules must always move in straight lines and with a constant velocity until they collide with each other or strike against the walls of the containing vessel, when, in consequence of their elasticity, they at once rebound and start on a new path with a new velocity. In these collisions, however, there is no loss of motion, for, as the molecules have the same weight, and are perfectly elastic, they simply change velocities, and whatever one may lose the other must gain.
But if the velocity changes in this way, you may ask, What meaning has the definite value given in our table? The answer is, that this is the mean value of the velocity of all the molecules in a mass of hydrogen gas under the assumed conditions; and, by the principle just stated, the mean value cannot be changed by the collisions of the molecules among themselves, however great may be the change in the motion of the individuals.
In both liquids and solids the molecular motions are undoubtedly as active as in a gas, but they must be greatly influenced by the mutual attractions which hold the particles together, and hence the conditions are far more complicated, and present a problem which we have been able to solve only very imperfectly, and with which, fortunately, we have not at present to deal.
Limiting, then, our study to the molecular condition of a gas, picture to yourselves what must be the condition of our atmosphere, with its molecules flying about in all directions. Conceive what a molecular storm must be, raging about us, and how it must beat against our bodies and against every exposed surface. The molecules of our atmosphere move, on an average, nearly four (3.8) times slower than those of hydrogen under the same conditions; but then they weigh, on an average, fourteen and a half times more than hydrogen-molecules, and therefore strike with as great energy. And do not think that the effect of these blows is insignificant because the molecular projectiles are so small; they make up by their number for what they want in size.
Consider, for example, a cubic yard of air, which, if measured at the freezing-point, weighs considerably over two pounds. That cubic yard of material contains over two pounds of molecules, which are moving with an average velocity of 1,605 feet a second, and this motion is equivalent, in every respect, to that of a cannon-ball of equal weight, rushing along its path at the same tremendous rate. Of course, this is true of every cubic yard of air at the same temperature; and, if the motion of the molecules of the atmosphere around us could by any means be turned into one and the same direction, the result would be a hurricane sweeping over the earth with this velocity—that is, at the rate of 1,094 miles an hour—whose destructive violence not even the Pyramids could withstand.
Living as we do in the midst of a molecular tornado capable of such effects, our safety lies wholly in the circumstance that the storm beats equally in all directions at the same time, and the force is thus so exactly balanced that we are wholly unconscious of the tumult. Not even the aspen-leaf is stirred, nor the most delicate membrane broken; but let us remove the air from one of the surfaces of such a membrane, and then the power of the molecular storm becomes evident, as in the familiar experiments with an air-pump.
As has already been intimated, the values of the velocities both of hydrogen and of air molecules given above were measured at a definite temperature, 32° of our Fahrenheit thermometer, the freezing-point of water; and this introduces a very important point bearing on our subject, namely, that the molecular velocities vary very greatly with the temperature. Indeed, according to our theory, this very molecular motion constitutes that state or condition of matter which we call temperature. A hot body is one whose molecules are moving comparatively rapidly, and a cold body one in which they are moving comparatively slowly. Without, however, entering into further details, which would involve the whole mechanical theory of heat, let me call your attention to a single consequence of the principle I have stated.
When we heat hydrogen, air, or any mass of gas, we simply increase the velocity of its moving molecules. When we cool the gas, we simply lessen the velocity of the same molecules. Take a current of air which enters a room through a furnace. In passing it comes in contact with heated iron, and, as we say, is heated. But, as we view the process, the molecules of the air, while in contact with the hot iron, collide with the very rapidly-oscillating metallic molecules, and fly back as a billiard-ball would under similar circumstances, with a greatly -increased velocity, and it is this more rapid motion which alone constitutes the higher temperature.
Consider, next, what must be the effect on the surface. A moment's reflection will show that the normal pressure exerted by the molecular storm, always raging in the atmosphere, is due not only to the impact of the molecules, but also to the reaction caused by their rebound. When the molecules rebound they are, as it were, driven away from the surface in virtue of the inherent elasticity both of the surface and of the molecules. Now, what takes place when one mass of matter is driven away from another—when a cannon-ball is driven out of a gun, for example? Why, the gun kicks! And so every surface from which molecules rebound must kick; and, if the velocity is not changed by the collision, one-half of the pressure caused by the molecular bombardment is due to the recoil. From a heated surface, as we have said, the molecules rebound with an increased velocity, and hence the recoil must be proportionally increased, determining a greater pressure against the surface.
According to this theory, then, we should expect that the air would press unequally against surfaces at different temperatures, and that, other things being equal, the pressure exerted would be greater the higher the temperature of the surface. Such a result, of course, is wholly contrary to common experience, which tells us that a uniform mass of air presses equally in all directions and against all surfaces of the same area, whatever may be their condition. It would seem, then, at first sight, as if we had here met with a conspicuous case in which our theory fails. But further study will convince us that the result is just what we should expect in a dense atmosphere like that in which we dwell; and, in order that this may become evident, let me next call your attention to another class of molecular magnitudes.
It must seem strange indeed that we should be able to measure molecular velocities, but the next point I have to bring to your notice is stranger yet, for we are confident that we have been able to determine with approximate accuracy for each kind of gas-molecule the average number of times one of these little bodies runs against its neighbors in a second, assuming, of course, that the conditions of the gas are given. Knowing, now, the molecular velocity and the number of collisions a second, we can readily calculate the mean path of the molecule—that is, the average distance it moves, under the same conditions, between two successive collisions. Of course, for any one molecule, this path must be constantly varying; since, while at one time the molecule may find a clear coast and make a long run, the very next time it may hardly start before its course is arrested. Still, taking a mass of gas under constant conditions, the doctrine of averages shows that the mean path must have a definite value, and an illustration will give an idea of the manner in which we have been able to estimate it.
The nauseous smelling gas we call sulphide of hydrogen has a density only a little greater than that of air, and its molecules must therefore move with very nearly as great velocity as the average air molecule—that is to say, about 1,480 feet a second; and we might therefore expect that, on opening a jar of the gas, its molecules would spread instantly through the surrounding atmosphere. But so far from this, if the air is quiet, so that the gas is not transported by currents, a very considerable time will elapse before the characteristic odor is perceived on the opposite side of an ordinary room. The reason is obvious—the molecules must elbow their way through the crowd of air-molecules which already occupy the space, and can therefore advance only slowly; and it is obvious that, the oftener they come into collision with their neighbors, the slower their progress must be. Knowing, then, the mean velocity of the molecular motion, and being able to measure by appropriate means the rate of diffusion, as it is called, we have the data from which we can calculate both the number of collisions in a second and also the mean path between two successive collisions. The results, as we must expect, are of the same order as the other molecular magnitudes. But inconceivably short as the free[4] path of a molecule certainly is, it is still, in the case of hydrogen gas, 136 times the diameter of the moving body, which would certainly be regarded among men as quite ample elbow-room.
Although, in this lecture, I have as yet had no occasion to mention the radiometer, I have by no means forgotten my main subject, and everything which has been said has had a direct bearing on the theory of this remarkable instrument; and still, before you can understand the great interest with which it is regarded, we must follow out another line of thought, converging on the same point.
One of the most remarkable results of modern science is the discovery that all energy at work on the surface of this planet comes from the sun. Most of you probably saw, at our Centennial Exhibition, that great artificial cascade in Machinery Hall, and were impressed with the power of the steam-pump which could keep flowing such a mass of water. But, also, when you stood before the falls at Niagara, did you realize the fact that the enormous floods of water, which you saw surging over those cliffs, were in like manner supplied by an all-powerful pump, and that pump the sun? And not only is this true, but it is equally true that every drop of water that falls, every wave that beats, every wind that blows, every creature that moves on the surface of the earth, one and all, are animated by that mysterious effluence we call the sunbeam. I say mysterious effluence; for how that power is transmitted over those 92,000,000 miles between the earth and the sun, is still one of the greatest mysteries of Nature.
In the science of optics, as is well known, the phenomena of light are explained by the assumption that the energy is transmitted in waves through a medium which fills all space, called the luminiferous ether, and there is no question that this theory of Nature, known in science as the Undulatory Theory of Light, is, as a working hypothesis, one of the most comprehensive and searching which the human mind has ever framed. It has both correlated known facts and pointed the way to remarkable discoveries. But, the moment we attempt to apply it to the problem before us, it demands conditions which tax even a philosopher's credulity.
As sad experience on the ocean only too frequently teaches, energy can be transmitted by waves as well as in any other way. But every mechanic will tell you that the transmission of energy, whatever be the means employed, implies certain well-known conditions. Let it be that the energy is to be used to turn the spindles of a cotton-mill. The engineer can tell you just how many horse-power he must supply for every working-day, and it is equally true that a definite amount of energy must come from the sun to do each day's work on the surface of the globe. Further, the engineer will also tell you that, in order to transmit the power from his turbine or his steam-engine, he must have shafts and pulleys and belts of adequate strength, and he knows in every case what is the lowest limit of safety. In like manner, the medium through which the energy which runs the world is transmitted must be strong enough to do the immense work put upon it; and, if the energy is transmitted by waves, this implies that the medium must have an enormously great elasticity, an elasticity vastly greater than that of the best-tempered steel.
But turn now to the astronomers, and learn what they have to tell us in regard to the assumed luminiferous ether through which all this energy is supposed to be transmitted. Our planet is rushing in its orbit around the sun at an average rate of over 1,000 miles a minute, and makes its annual journey of some 550,000,000 miles in 365 days 6 hours 9 seconds and 610 of a second. Mark the tenths; for astronomical observations are so accurate that, if the length of the year varied permanently by the tenth of a second, we should know it; and you can readily understand that, if there were a medium in space which offered as much resistance to the motion of the earth as would gossamer threads to a race-horse, the planet could never come up to time, year after year, to the tenth of a second.
How, then, can we save our theory, by which we set so much, and rightly, because it has helped us so effectively in studying Nature? If we may be allowed such an extravagant solecism, let us suppose that the engineer of our previous illustration was the hero of a fairy-tale. He has built a mill, set a steam-engine in the basement, arranged his spindles above, and is connecting the pulleys by the usual belts, when some stern necessity requires him to transmit all the energy with cobwebs. Of course, a good fairy comes to his aid, and what does she do? Simply makes the cobwebs indefinitely strong. So the physicists, not to be outdone by any fairies, make their ether indefinitely elastic, and their theory lands them just here, with a medium filling all space, thousands of times more elastic than steel, and thousands on thousands of times less dense than hydrogen gas. There must be a fallacy somewhere, and I strongly suspect it is to be found in our ordinary materialistic notions of causation, which involve the old metaphysical dogma, "nulla actio in distans" and which in our day have culminated in the famous apothegm of the German materialist, "Kein Phosphor kein Gedanke."
But it is not my purpose to discuss the doctrines of causation, and I have dwelt on the difficulty, which this subject presents in connection with the undulatory theory, solely because I wished you to appreciate the great interest with which scientific men have looked for some direct manifestation of the mechanical action of light. It is true that the ether-waves must have dimensions similar to those of the molecules discussed above, and we must expect, therefore, that they would act primarily on the molecules and not on masses of matter. But still the well-known principles of wave-motion have led competent physicists to maintain that a more or less considerable pressure ought to be exerted by the ether-waves on the surfaces against which they beat, as a partial resultant of the molecular tremors first imparted. Already, in the last century, attempts were made to discover some evidence of such action, and in various experiments the sun's direct rays were concentrated on films, delicately suspended and carefully protected from all other extraneous influences, but without any apparent effect; and thus the question remained until about three years ago, when the scientific world were startled by the announcement of Mr. Crookes, of London, that, on suspending a small piece of blackened alder-pith in the very perfect vacuum which can now be obtained with the mercury pump, invented by Sprengel, he had seen this light body actually repelled by the sun's rays; and they were still more startled, when, after a few further experiments, he presented us with the instrument he called a radiometer, in which the sun's rays do the no inconsiderable work of turning a small wheel. Let us examine for a moment the construction of this remarkable instrument.
The moving part of the radiometer is a small horizontal wheel, to the ends of whose arms are fastened vertical vanes, usually of mica, and blackened on one side. A glass cap forms the hub, and by the glass-blower's art the wheel is inclosed in a glass bulb, so that the cap rests on the point of a cambric needle; and the wheel is so delicately balanced on this pivot that it turns with the greatest freedom. From the interior of the bulb the air is now exhausted by means of the Sprengel pump, until less than 11000 the original quantity is left, and the only opening is then hermetically sealed. If, now, the sun's light or even the light from a candle shines on the vanes, the blackened surfaces—which are coated with lamp-black—are repelled, and, these being symmetrically placed around the wheel, the several forces conspire to produce the rapid motion which results. The effect has all the appearance of a direct mechanical action exerted by the light, and for some time was so regarded by Mr. Crookes and other eminent physicists, although in his published papers it should be added that Mr. Crookes carefully abstained from speculating on the subject—aiming, as he has since said, to keep himself unbiased by any theory, while he accumulated the facts upon which a satisfactory explanation might be based.
Singularly, however, the first aspect of the new phenomena proved to be wholly deceptive; and the motion, so far from being an effect of the direct mechanical action of the waves of light, is now believed to be a new and very striking manifestation of molecular motion. To this opinion Mr. Crookes himself has come, and in a recent article he writes: "Twelve months' research, however, has thrown much light on these actions; and the explanation afforded by the dynamical theory of gases makes, what was a year ago obscure and contradictory, now reasonable and intelligible."
As is frequently the case in Nature, the chief effect is here obscured by various subordinate phenomena, and it is not surprising that a great difference of opinion should have arisen in regard to the cause of the motion. This would not be an appropriate place to describe the numerous investigations occasioned by the controversy, many of which show in a most striking manner how easily experimental evidence may be honestly misinterpreted in support of a preconceived opinion. I will, however, venture to trespass further on your patience, so far as to describe the few experiments by which very early in the controversy I satisfied my own mind on the subject.
When two years ago I had for the first time an opportunity of experimenting with a radiometer, the opinion was still prevalent that the motion of the wheel was a direct mechanical effect of the waves of light, and therefore that the impulses came from the outside of the instrument, the waves passing freely through the glass envelope. At the outset this opinion did not seem to me to be reasonable, or in harmony with well-known facts; for, knowing how great must be the molecular disturbance caused by the sun's rays as shown by their heating power, I could not believe that a residual action, such as has been referred to, would first appear in these delicate phenomena observed by Mr. Crookes, and should only be manifested in the vacuum of a mercury-pump.
On examining the instrument, my attention was at once arrested by the lampblack coating on the alternate surfaces of the vanes; and from the remarkable power of lampblack to absorb radiant heat it was evident at once that, whatever other effects the rays from the sun or from a flame might cause, they must necessarily determine a constant difference of temperature between the two surfaces of the vanes; and the thought at once occurred that, after all, the motion might be a direct result of this difference of temperature—in other words, that the radiometer might be a small heat-engine, whose motions, like those of every other heat-engine, depend on the difference of temperature between its parts.
But, if this were true, the effect ought to be proportional solely to the heating power of the rays, and a very easy means of roughly testing this question was at hand. It is well known that an aqueous solution of alum, although transmitting light as freely as the purest water, powerfully absorbs those rays, of any source, which have the chief heating power. Accordingly, I interposed what we call an alum-cell in the path of the rays shining on the radiometer, when, although the light on the vanes was as bright as before, the motion was almost completely arrested.
This experiment, however, was not conclusive, as it might still be said that the heat-giving rays acted mechanically; and it must be admitted that the chief part of the energy in the rays, even from the most brilliant luminous sources, always takes the form of heat. But, if the action is mechanical, the reaction must be against the medium through which the rays are transmitted, while, if the radiometer is simply a heat-engine, the action and reaction must be, ultimately at least, between the heater and the cooler, which in this case are respectively the blackened surfaces of the vanes and the glass walls of the inclosing bulb; and here, again, a very easy method of testing the actual condition at once suggested itself.
If the motion of the radiometer-wheel is an effect of mechanical impulses transmitted in the direction of the beam of light, it was certainly to be expected that the beam would act on the lustrous as well as on the blackened mica surfaces, however large might be the difference in the resultants producing mechanical motion in consequence of the great absorbing power of the lampblack. Moreover, since the instrument is so constructed that of two vanes, on opposite sides of the wheel, one always presents a blackened and the other a lustrous surface to an incident beam, we should further expect to find in the motion of the wheel a differential phenomenon, due to the unequal action of the light on these surfaces. On the other hand, if the radiometer is a heat-engine, and the reaction takes place between the heated blackened surfaces of the vanes and the colder glass, it is evident that the total effect will be simply the sum of the effects at the several surfaces.
In order to investigate the question thus presented, I placed the radiometer before a common kerosene-lamp, and observed, with a stopwatch, the number of seconds elapsed during ten revolutions of the little wheel. Finding that this number was absolutely constant, I next screened one-half of the bulb, so that only the blackened faces were exposed to the light as the wheel turned them into the beam. Again, I several times observed the number of seconds during ten turns, which, although equally constant, was greater than before. Lastly, I screened the blackened surfaces so that, as the wheel turned, only the lustrous surfaces of mica were exposed to the light, when, to my surprise, the wheel continued to turn in the same direction as before, although much more slowly. It appeared as if the lustrous surfaces were attracted by the light. Again I observed the time of ten revolutions, and here I have collected my results, reducing them, in the last column, so as to show the corresponding number of revolutions in the same time:
| CONDITIONS. | Time of Ten Revolutions. |
No. of Revolutions in same Time. |
| Both faces exposed. | 8 seconds. | 319 |
| Blackened faces only. | 11" | 232 |
| Mica faces only. | 29" | 88 |
It will be noticed that 88 232 equals very nearly 319. Evidently the effect, so far from being differential, is concurrent. Hence, the action which causes the motion must take place between the parts of the instrument, and cannot be a direct effect of impulses imparted by ether-waves; or else we are driven to the most improbable alternative, that lampblack and mica should have such a remarkable selective power that the impulses imparted by the light should exert a repulsive force at one surface and an attractive force at the other. Were there, however, such an improbable effect, it must be independent of the thickness of the mica vanes; while on the other hand, if, as seemed to us now most probable, the whole effect depended on the difference of temperature between the lampblack and the mica, and if the light produced an effect on the mica surface only because, the mica plate being diathermous to a very considerable extent, the lampblack became heated through the plate more than the plate itself, then it would follow that, if we used a thicker mica plate, which would absorb more of the heat, we ought to obtain a marked difference of effect. Accordingly we repeated the experiment with an equally sensitive radiometer, which we made for the purpose, with comparatively thick vanes, and with this the effect of a beam of light on the mica surface was absolutely null, the wheel revolving in the same time, whether these faces were protected or not.
But one thing was now wanting to make the demonstration complete. A heat-engine is reversible, and if the motion of the radiometer depended on the circumstance that the temperature of the blackened faces of the vanes was higher than that of the glass, then by reversing the conditions we ought to reverse the motion. Accordingly, I carefully heated the glass bulb over a lamp, until it was as hot as the hand would bear, and then placed the instrument in a cold room, trusting to the great radiating power of lampblack to maintain the temperature of the blackened surfaces of the vanes below that of the glass. Immediately the wheel began to turn in the opposite direction, and continued to turn until the temperature of the glass came into equilibrium with the surrounding objects.
These early experiments have since been confirmed to the fullest extent, and no physicist at the present day can reasonably doubt that the radiometer is a very beautiful example of a heat-engine, and it is the first that has been made to work continuously by the heat of the sunbeam. But it is one thing to show that the instrument is a heat-engine, and quite another thing to explain in detail the manner in which it acts. In regard to the last point, there is still room for much difference of opinion, although physicists are generally agreed in referring the action to the residual gas that is left in the bulb. As for myself, I became strongly persuaded—after experimenting with more than one hundred of these instruments, made under my own eye, with every variation of conditions I could suggest—that the effect was due to the same cause which determines gas-pressure, and, according to the dynamical theory of gases, this amounts to saying that the effect is due to molecular motion. I have not time, however, to describe either my own experiments on which this opinion was first based, or the far more thorough investigations since made by others, which have served to strengthen the first impression.[5] But, after our previous discussions, a few words will suffice to show how the molecular theory explains the new phenomena.
Although the air in the bulb has been so nearly exhausted that less than the one-thousandth part remains, yet it must be borne in mind that the number of molecules left behind is by no means inconsiderable. As will be seen by referring to our table, there must still be no less than 311,000 million million in every cubic inch. Moreover, the absolute pressure which this residual gas exerts is a very appreciable quantity. It is simply the one-thousandth of the normal pressure of the atmosphere, that is, of 14 710 pounds on a square inch; which is equivalent to a little over 100 grains on the same area. Now, the area of the blackened surfaces of the vanes of an ordinary radiometer measures just about a square inch, and the wheel is mounted so delicately that a constant pressure of one-tenth of a grain would be sufficient to produce rapid motion. So that a difference of pressure on the opposite faces of the vanes, equal to one one-thousandth of the whole amount, is all that we need account for; and, as can easily be calculated, a difference of temperature of less than half a degree Fahrenheit would cause all this difference in the pressure of the rarefied air.
But you may ask, How can such a difference of pressure exist on different surfaces exposed to one and the same medium? and jour question is a perfectly legitimate one; for it is just here that the new phenomena seem to belie all our previous experience. If, however, you followed me in my very partial exposition of the mechanical theory of gases, you will easily see that on this theory it is a more difficult question to explain why such a difference of pressure does not manifest itself in every gas medium and under all conditions between any two surfaces having different temperatures.
We saw that gas-pressure is a double effect, caused both by the impact of molecules and by the recoil of the surface attending their rebound. We also saw that when molecules strike a heated surface they rebound with increased velocity, and hence produce an increased pressure against the surface, the greater the higher the temperature. According to this theory, then, we should expect to find the same atmosphere pressing unequally on equal surfaces if at different temperatures; and the difference in the pressure on the lampblack and mica surfaces of the vanes, which the motion of the radiometer-wheel necessarily implies, is therefore simply the normal effect of the mechanical condition of every gas medium. The real difficulty is, to explain why we must exhaust the air so perfectly before the effect manifests itself.
The new theory is equal to the emergency. As has been already pointed out, in the ordinary state of the air the amplitude of the molecular motion is exceedingly small, not over a few ten-millionths of an inch—a very small fraction, therefore, of the height of the inequalities on the lampblack surfaces of the vanes of a radiometer. Under such circumstances, evidently the molecules would not leave the heated surface, but simply bound back and forth between the vanes and the surrounding mass of dense air, which, being almost absolutely a nonconductor of heat, must act essentially like an elastic solid wall confining the vanes on either side. For the time being, and until replaced by convection-currents, the oscillating molecules are as much a part of the vanes as our atmosphere is a part of the earth; and on this system, as a whole, the homogeneous dense air which surrounds it must press equally from all directions. In proportion, however, as the air is exhausted, the molecules find more room and the amplitude of the molecular motion is increased, and when a very high degree of exhaustion is reached the air-particles no longer bound back and forth on the vanes without change of condition, but they either bound off entirely like a ball from a cannon, or else, having transferred a portion of their momentum, return with diminished velocity, and in either case the force of the reaction is felt.[6] Thus it appears that we have been able to show by very definite experimental evidence that the radiometer is a heat-engine. We have also been able to show that such a difference of temperature as the radiation must produce in the air in direct contact with the opposite faces of the vanes of the radiometer would determine a difference of tension, which is sufficient to account for the motion of the wheel. Finally, we have shown, as fully as is possible in a popular lecture, that, according to the mechanical theory of gases, such a difference of tension would have its normal effect only in a highly-rarefied atmosphere, and thus we have brought the new phenomena into harmony with the general principles of molecular mechanics previously established.
More than this cannot be said of the steam-engine, although, of course, in the older engine the measurements on which the theory is based are vastly more accurate and complete. But the moment we attempt to go beyond the general principles of heat-engines, of which the steam-engine is such a conspicuous illustration, and explain how the heat is transformed into motion, we have to resort to the molecular theory just as in the case of the radiometer; and the motion of the steam-engine seems to us less wonderful than that of the radiometer, only because it is more familiar and more completely harmonized with the rest of our knowledge. Moreover, the very molecular theory which we call upon to explain the steam-engine involves consequences which, as we have seen, have been first realized in the radiometer; and thus it
is that this new instrument, although disappointing the first expectations of its discoverer, has furnished a very striking confirmation of this wonderful theory. Indeed, the confirmation is so remote and yet so close, so unexpected and yet so strong, that the new phenomena almost seem to be a direct manifestation of the molecular motion which our theory assumes; and when a new discovery thus confirms the accuracy of a previous generalization, and gives us additional reason to believe that the glimpses we have gained into the order of Nature are trustworthy, it excites, with reason, among scientific scholars the warmest interest.
And when we consider the vast scope of the molecular theory, the order on order of existences which it opens to the imagination, how can we fail to be impressed with the position in which it places man midway between the molecular cosmos on the one side and the stellar cosmos on the other—a position in which he is able in some measure, at least, to study and interpret both?
Since the time to which we referred at the beginning of this lecture, when man's dwelling-place was looked at as the centre of a creation which was solely subservient to his wants, there has been a reaction to the opposite extreme, and we have heard much of the utter insignificance of the earth in a universe among whose immensities all human belongings are but as a drop in the ocean. When now, however, we learn from Sir William Thomson that the drop of water in our comparison is itself a universe, consisting of units so small that, were the drop magnified to the size of the earth, these units would not exceed in magnitude a cricket-ball,[7] and when, on studying chemistry, we still further learn that these units are not single masses but systems of atoms, we may leave the illusions of the imagination from the one side to correct those from the other, and all will teach us the great lesson that man's place in Nature is not to be estimated by relations of magnitude, but by the intelligence which makes the whole creation his own.
But, if it is man's privilege to follow both the atoms and the stars in their courses, he finds that while thus exercising the highest attributes of his nature he is ever in the presence of an immeasurably superior intelligence, before which he must bow and adore, and thus come to him both the assurance and the pledge of a kinship in which his only real glory can be found.
- ↑ A lecture delivered in the Sanders Theatre of Harvard University, March 6, 1878.
- ↑ As some of the readers of this journal may be interested to compare these values, we reproduce the "Table of Molecular Data" from Prof. Clerk Maxwell's lecture on "Molecules," delivered before the British Association at Bradford, and published in Nature, September 25, 1873.
Molecular Magnitudes at Standard Temperature and Pressure, 0°C. and 16 c.m.
RANK ACCORDING TO ACCURACY OF KNOWLEDGE. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Carbonic Oxide. Carbonic Dioxide. Rank I. Relative mass 1 16 14 22 Velocity in metres per second 1,859 465 497 396 Rank II. Mean path in ten billionths () of a metre. 965 560 482 379 Collisions each second—number of millions 17,750 7,646 9,489 9,790 Rank III. Diameter in hundred hillionths () of a metre 58 76 83 93 Mass in ten million million million millionths () of a gramme; 46 736 644 1,012 Number of molecules in one cubic centimetre of every gas is nineteen million million million on 19 ().
Two million hydrogen molecules side by side measure a little over one millimetre.
- ↑ See Prof. Maxwell's lecture, loc. cit.; also Appletons' "Cyclopædia," article "Molecules."
- ↑ There is an obvious distinction between the free and the disturbed path of a molecule, and we cannot overlook in our calculations the perturbations which the collisions necessarily entail. Such considerations greatly complicate the problem, which is far more difficult than would appear from the superficial view of the subject that can alone be given in a popular lecture.
- ↑ See notice of these investigations by the author of this article, in American Journal of Science and Arts, September, 1877 (3), xiv., 231.
- ↑ The reader will, of course, distinguish between the differential action on the opposite faces of the vanes of the radiometer and the reaction between the vanes and the glass which are the heater and the cooler of the little engine. Nor will it be necessary to remind any student that a popular view of such a complex subject must be necessarily partial. In the present case we not only meet with the usual difficulties in this respect, but, moreover, the principles of molecular mechanics have not been so fully developed as to preclude important differences of opinion between equally competent authorities in regard to the details of the theory. To avoid misapprehension, we may here add that, in order to obtain in the radiometer a reaction between the heater and the cooler, it is not necessary that the space between them should actually be crossed by the moving molecules. It is only necessary that the momentum should be transferred across the space, and this may take place along lines consisting of many molecules each. The theory, however, shows that such a transfer can only take place in a highly-rarefied medium. In an atmosphere of ordinary density, the accession of heat which the vanes of a radiometer might receive from a radiant source would be diffused through the mass of the inclosed air. This amounts to saying that the momentum would be so diffused, and hence, under such circumstances, the molecular motion would not determine any reaction between the vanes and the glass envelope. Indeed, a dense mass of gas presents to the conduction of heat, which represents momentum, a wall far more impenetrable than the surrounding glass, and the diffusion of heat is almost wholly brought about by convection-currents which rise from the heated surfaces. It will thus be seen that the great non-conducting power of air comes into play to prevent not only the transfer of momentum from the vanes to the glass, but also, almost entirely, any direct transfer to the surrounding mass of gas. Hence, as stated above, the heated molecules bound back and forth on the vanes without change of condition, and the mass of the air retains its uniform tension in all parts of the bulb, except in so far as this is slowly altered by the convection-currents just referred to. As the atmosphere, however, becomes less dense, the diffusion of heat by convection diminishes, and that by molecular motion (conduction) increases until the last greatly predominates. When, now, the exhaustion reaches so great a degree that the heat, or momentum, is rapidly transferred from the heater to the cooler by an exaggeration, or, possibly, a modification of the mode of action we call conduction, then we have the reaction on which the motion of the radiometer-wheel depends.
- ↑ Nature, No. 22, March 31, 1870.
