light.” It will thus be seen that optical and electrical phenomena
are co-ordinated as a phase of the physics of the “aether,” and
that the investigation of these sciences culminates in the derivation
of the properties of this conceptual medium, the existence
of which was called into being as an instrument of research.[1]
The methods of the elastic-solid theory can still be used with
advantage in treating many optical phenomena, more especially
so long as we remain ignorant of fundamental matters concerning
the origin of electric and magnetic strains and stresses; in
addition, the treatment is more intelligible, the researches on
the electromagnetic theory leading in many cases to the derivation
of differential equations which express quantitative relations
between diverse phenomena, although no precise meaning can
be attached to the symbols employed. The school following
Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz has certainly laid the foundations
of a complete theory of light and electricity, but the methods
must be adopted with caution, lest one be constrained to say
with Ludwig Boltzmann as in the introduction to his Vorlesungen
über Maxwell’s Theorie der Elektricität und des Lichtes:—
“So soll ich denn mit saurem Schweiss |
The essential distinctions between optical and electromagnetic phenomena may be traced to differences in the lengths of light-waves and of electromagnetic waves. The aether can probably transmit waves of any wave-length, the velocity of longitudinal propagation being about 3.1010 cms. per second. The shortest waves, discovered by Schumann and accurately measured by Lyman, have a wave-length of 0.0001 mm.; the ultra-violet, recognized by their action on the photographic plate or by their promoting fluorescence, have a wave-length of 0.0002 mm.; the eye recognizes vibrations of a wave-length ranging from about 0.0004 mm. (violet) to about 0.0007 (red); the infra-red rays, recognized by their heating power or by their action on phosphorescent bodies, have a wave-length of 0.001 mm.; and the longest waves present in the radiations of a luminous source are the residual rays (“Rest-strahlen”) obtained by repeated reflections from quartz (.0085 mm.), from fluorite (0.056 mm.), and from sylvite (0.06 mm.). The research-field of optics includes the investigation of the rays which we have just enumerated. A delimitation may then be made, inasmuch as luminous sources yield no other radiations, and also since the next series of waves, the electromagnetic waves, have a minimum wave-length of 6 mm.
§ 2. The commonest subjective phenomena of light are colour and visibility, i.e. why are some bodies visible and others not, or, in other words, what is the physical significance of the words “transparency,” “colour” and “visibility.” What is ordinarily understood by a transparent substance is one which transmits all the rays of white light without appreciable absorption—that some absorption does occur is perceived when the substance is viewed through a sufficient thickness. Colour is due to the absorption of certain rays of the spectrum, the unabsorbed rays being transmitted to the eye, where they occasion the sensation of colour (see Colour; Absorption of Light). Transparent bodies are seen partly by reflected and partly by transmitted light, and opaque bodies by absorption. Refraction also influences visibility. Objects immersed in a liquid of the same refractive index and dispersion would be invisible; for example, a glass rod can hardly be seen when immersed in Canada balsam; other instances occur in the petrological examination of rock-sections under the microscope. In a complex rock-section the boldness with which the constituents stand out are measures of the difference between their refractive indices and the refractive index of the mounting medium, and the more nearly the indices coincide the less defined become the boundaries, while the interior of the mineral may be most advantageously explored. Lord Rayleigh has shown that transparent objects can only be seen when non-uniformly illuminated, the differences in the refractive indices of the substance and the surrounding medium becoming inoperative when the illumination is uniform on all sides. R. W. Wood has performed experiments which confirm this view.
The analysis of white light into the spectrum colours, and the re-formation of the original light by transmitting the spectrum through a reversed prism, proved, to the satisfaction of Newton and subsequent physicists until late in the 19th century, that the various coloured rays were present in white light, and that the action of the prism was merely to sort out the rays. This view, which suffices for the explanation of most phenomena, has now been given up, and the modern view is that the prism or grating really does manufacture the colours, as was held previously to Newton. It appears that white light is a sequence of irregular wave trains which are analysed into series of more regular trains by the prism or grating in a manner comparable with the analytical resolution presented by Fourier’s theorem. The modern view points to the mathematical existence of waves of all wave-lengths in white light, the Newtonian view to the physical existence. Strictly, the term “monochromatic” light is only applicable to light of a single wave-length (which can have no actual existence), but it is commonly used to denote light which cannot be analysed by the instruments at our disposal; for example, with low-power instruments the light emitted by sodium vapour would be regarded as homogeneous or monochromatic, but higher power instruments resolve this light into two components of different wave-lengths, each of which is of a higher degree of homogeneity, and it is not impossible that these rays may be capable of further analysis.
§ 3. Divisions of the Subject.—In the early history of the science of light or optics a twofold division was adopted: Catoptrics (from Gr. κάτοπτρον, a mirror), embracing the phenomena of reflection, i.e. the formation of images by mirrors; and Dioptrics (Gr. διά, through), embracing the phenomena of refraction, i.e. the bending of a ray of light when passing obliquely through the surface dividing two media.[2] A third element, Chromatics (Gr. χρῶμα, colour), was subsequently introduced to include phenomena involving colour transformations, such as the iridescence of mother-of-pearl, feathers, soap-bubbles, oil floating on water, &c. This classification has been discarded (although the terms, particularly “dioptric” and “chromatic,” have survived as adjectives) in favour of a twofold division: geometrical optics and physical optics. Geometrical optics is a mathematical development (mainly effected by geometrical methods) of three laws assumed to be rigorously true: (1) the law of rectilinear propagation, viz. that light travels in straight lines or rays in any homogeneous medium; (2) the law of reflection, viz. that the incident and reflected rays at any point of a surface are equally inclined to, and coplanar with, the normal to the surface at the point of incidence; and (3) the law of refraction, viz. that the incident and refracted rays at a surface dividing two media make angles with the normal to the surface at the point of incidence whose sines are in a ratio (termed the “refractive index”) which is constant for every particular pair of media, and that the incident and refracted rays are coplanar with the normal. Physical optics, on the other hand, has for its ultimate object the elucidation of the question: what is light? It investigates the nature of the rays themselves, and, in addition to determining the validity of the axioms of geometrical optics, embraces phenomena for the explanation of which an expansion of these assumptions is necessary.
Of the subordinate phases of the science, “physiological optics” is concerned with the phenomena of vision, with the eye as an optical instrument, with colour-perception, and
- ↑ The invention of “aethers” is to be carried back, at least, to the Greek philosophers, and with the growth of knowledge they were empirically postulated to explain many diverse phenomena. Only one “aether” has survived in modern science—that associated with light and electricity, and of which Lord Salisbury, in his presidential address to the British Association in 1894, said, “For more than two generations the main, if not the only, function of the word ‘aether’ has been to furnish a nominative case to the verb ‘to undulate.’ ” (See Aether.)
- ↑ With the Greeks the word “Optics” or Ὀπτικά (from ὄπτομαι, the obsolete present of ὁρῶ, I see) was restricted to questions concerning vision, &c., and the nature of light.
