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Nature's Miracles Volume 3: Electricity and Magnetism

<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> <h3>ELECTRIC CURRENTS.</h3> The simplest form of an electric machine is one in which the operator is a prominent part of the operation. Electricity, like magnetism, operates in a closed circuit, even when it is static—so-called. Take a stick of sealing-wax, say, in your left hand, and rub it with a piece of fur or silk with your right hand, and you have the simplest form of electric machine—the one that was known to the ancients, and the one from which the science, great as it is to-day, had its beginnings. The stick of sealing-wax is one element of the battery, and the piece of fur or silk is the other, while your hands, arm and body form the conductor that connects the two poles, and the friction is the exciting agent and may be said to take the place of the fluid of a battery. The electrical conditions are not wholly static, as a slow current is passing around through your arms and body from one pole to the other. Even if the conditions were wholly static there would be polarized lines of force, in a state of strain, reaching around in a closed circuit. If we rub the wax with the fur and then take it away the wax has a charge of electricity and will attract light objects. If we had rubbed a piece of metal or some good conductor it would have been warmed instead of electrified. In both cases the particles of the substances have been affected, and if the atomic theory is correct—and it seems plausible—in the former case the atoms are partly put into electrical motion and partly into a state of electrical strain that we call static (standing) electricity; while in the latter case the atoms are put into the peculiar motion that belongs to heat. The former we call electricity, and the latter we call heat. The electro-atomic motion under some circumstances readily turns to heat, which seems to be the tendency of all forms of energy. The electric light is a result of this tendency. All non-conductors, or electrics, have a complex molecular structure, and, while their atoms when subjected to friction are put into a state of electrostatic strain, they are not able readily to respond as a conductor of dynamic electricity. The electric-light filament in the incandescent lamp is a much poorer conductor than the copper wire that leads up to it. The copper wire is readily responsive to the electrical influence, but the carbon filament is not. So electrical action that freely passes along the wire, is resisted and becomes heat action in the filament, and light is the attendant of intense heat. But, to go back to the sources of electricity. Frictional electric machines have been constructed in great variety. All, however, embrace the essentials set forth in the sealing-wax experiment, and would be difficult to describe without cuts. Let us, therefore, consider another source of electricity, which was the outgrowth of the discovery of Galvani (or rather his wife), and reduced to concrete form by Volta. We refer to the galvanic or voltaic battery. If we put a bar of zinc into a glass vessel and pour sulphuric acid and water into it, there will be a boiling, and an evolution of hydrogen gas, and energy is released in the form of heat, so that the fluid and the glass vessel become heated. Now let us put a bar of copper or a stick of carbon into the glass, but not in contact with the zinc; connect the ends (that are not immersed) of the two elements—copper and zinc—with a metal wire or any conductor, and a new condition is set up. Heat is no longer evolved to the same extent, but most of the energy becomes electrical in character, and an electrical chain of action takes place in the circuit that has now been formed. Taking the zinc as the starting point, the so-called current flows from the zinc through the fluid to the copper and from the copper through the wire to the zinc. A chain of polarized atomic activity is established in the circuit, similar to the closed circuit of magnetic lines of force, only the latter is static, while the former is dynamic. You ask what is the difference? Well, it is much easier to ask a question than it is to answer it. You will remember that in the chapter on magnetism it was stated that the molecules of a magnet were little natural magnets, and that their attractions were satisfied within themselves; that when their local attachments were broken up and all their like poles turned in one direction they could act upon other pieces of iron outside of the magnet. Outside and between the poles there are magnetic lines of force reaching out from one pole to the other. If we put a piece of iron across the poles these lines of force are gathered up and pass through the iron. This is purely a static condition. Let us go back to the cell of battery. When the elements are in position (the copper, the acidulated water and the zinc), and the two wires attached to the two metals which are the two poles of the battery not yet connected, there is a condition induced in these two wires that did not exist before the acidulated water was poured in, although the circuit is not yet established. If we test the two wires we find a difference of potential—a state of strain, so to speak—that did not exist before the acid acted on the zinc and liberated what was stored energy. It is in a static condition, like the magnet, and electrical lines of force are reaching out from both wires so that the ether is in a state of strain between the two poles. The air molecules may partake of it, but we have to bring in the ether as a substance, because the same conditions would practically exist if the two wires were in a vacuum. If now we connect the two wires, we have established a metallic circuit between the two poles of the battery, the static conditions are relieved, the lines of force are gathered up into the wire, and the phenomenon that we call a current is established and we have dynamic or moving electricity. Having established the so-called electric current we will now try to show you that there really is no current. The idea of a current involves the idea of a fluid substance flowing from one point to another. When you were a boy did you never set up a row of bricks on their ends, just far enough apart so that if you pushed one over they all fell one after another? Now, imagine rows of molecules or atoms, and in your imagination they may be arranged like the bricks, so that they are affected one by the other successively with a rapidity that is akin to that of light-waves, and you can conceive how a motion may be communicated from end to end of a wire hundreds of miles in length in a small fraction of a second, and no material substance has been carried through the wire—only energy. We do not mean to say that the row of bricks illustrates the exact mode of molecular or atomic motion that takes place in a conductor. What we mean is, that in some way motion is passed along from atom to atom. To give you a better conception of an electric current, let us go back of the galvanic cell to the electric machine. If both poles of the machine are attached to rods terminating in round knobs we can set the machine in action and keep up a steady stream of disruptive discharges that will, if their frequency is great enough, perform the function of a current, and we have dynamic electricity from a statical machine; when the acid of the galvanic battery breaks down a molecule of zinc, energy is set free, and in the battery we have what corresponds to a disruptive discharge of infinitesimal proportions. This discharge would have been immediately converted into heat energy if the copper element had been left out of the battery, but as it is, it impresses itself on the atomic "brick" next to it, which establishes a chain of atomic movement throughout the circuit. This may constitute, if you please, a line of electrical force. But as thousands of these disruptive discharges are taking place simultaneously as many different lines of force are established. You must not conceive of these chains of atoms as simply thrown down like the bricks and left lying there, but that the atom is active; that it has the power to pick itself up again in an infinitesimally short time and is again knocked down (following the illustration of the bricks) by the next discharge along its line or chain of atoms. If you could get a mental picture of this action you would see that the whole conductor is in a most violent state of atomic motion of a peculiar kind. At the same time a part of this electrical motion is being converted into a heat motion of the atoms, and finally it all returns to heat unless some of it is stored up somewhere as potential energy. If the current has driven a motor that has wound up a weight, a part is stored up in the weight, which has the ability to do work if it is allowed to run down. If it drives machinery as it runs down, the mechanical motion is the expression of the stored energy. When the weight has run down the energy will be represented by the heat created by friction of the journals of the wheels and pulleys and the heating of the air. If the weight is allowed to fall suddenly it will heat the air to some extent, but mostly the earth and the weight itself will be heated. If the source of energy (the battery) is great and the pressure high and the conductor is too small to carry the energy developed in the battery as electricity, heat is developed, and if the heat is sufficiently intense, light also. We have seen (Vol. II) that heat motion when it reaches a sufficiently high rate throws the ether into a vibratory motion that we call light. However, this vibratory motion of the ether is set up long before it reaches the luminous stage; in other words, there are dark rays of the ether. We find that the electro-atomic motions of a conductor have the power to impress themselves upon the ether. <div class="figcenter"> <big>Fig. 1.</big> <ANTIMG src="images/fig1.jpg" width-obs="100%" alt="Fig. 1." title="Fig. 1." /> A is the primary line; a, the battery: b, the key. B is the secondary line in which is placed the galvanometer c. </div> Let us try another experiment to show that this is the case, not only, but that the impressed ether can transfer these impressions to still another conductor. Suppose we stretch two parallel wires for, say, half a mile, or any distance, only a few feet apart, and make of each a complete circuit by rounding the end of the course and returning the wire to the starting point (as shown in Fig. 1). Put in one of these circuits a battery, and a circuit-breaker (a common telegraph-key), and in the other circuit a galvanometer (an instrument for detecting the presence and measuring the intensity of a galvanic current, by means of a dial and a deflecting needle or pointer). Now if we touch the key and close the circuit in A, the needle of the galvanometer in B will swing in one direction from zero on the dial; and if we release the key, breaking the circuit in A, the needle will swing back in the opposite direction. In neither case will the needle stay deflected, but will at once return to zero. This shows that when the battery current was allowed to complete its circuit through wire A by closing its key, an electrical action was instantly felt in wire B, although there was no material connection between them other than the air, which is a non-conductor. The current in the second circuit is called an induced current. Why this current? According to one theory, when we close the primary circuit the surrounding ether is thrown into a peculiar state of strain that we will call magnetic or electrical lines of force. When the ether wave strikes the second wire there is a molecular movement from a state of rest to a state of static strain. During the time that the molecules are moving from the normal to the strained position in sympathy with the ether we have the condition of a dynamic current, which lasts only a moment. This state of strain continues till the circuit is opened (breaking the wire-line), when all the electrical lines of force vanish and the molecular strain of the second wire is relieved, and we again have the conditions, momentarily, for a current of the opposite polarity, and the needle will swing in the opposite direction because the molecules or atoms have, in their recoil to the natural state, moved in an opposite direction. Going back to Fig. 1, let us further study the phenomena under other conditions. In our first circuit (A) there is a battery and a circuit-breaker, which is a common telegraph-key. Now close the key so that a current will be established. (Remember that "current" is only a name for a condition of dynamic charge.) Place a piece of soft iron across the wire at right angles with the direction of the wire, when of course it will be at right angles with the direction of the current, and you will find now that the iron is more or less magnetic, depending upon the amount of current passing through the wire. If we wind a number of turns of insulated wire through which the current is passing around the iron the magnetism will be increased. In practice there are a certain number of turns and a certain sized wire that will give the best results with a given number of cells of battery (or a given voltage or pressure), operating in a closed circuit of a given resistance. All these questions are worked out mathematically in many standard books on the subject. It is not the intention in these talks to develop the science mathematically but to set out the fundamental physical facts and applications of electricity. Under the conditions above named magnetism is developed in the soft iron bar. If we open the key the current will cease and the magnetism will vanish—that is to say, the molecules will turn back to their neutral position by their own attractions, as has been described in a previous chapter. Magnetism developed in this way is called electromagnetism. (See Chap. IV.) If we use a piece of hardened steel instead of the soft iron it will become magnetic and remain so when the circuit is opened, because the natural tendency of the molecules to turn back to the neutral position is not great enough to overcome the coercive force, or molecular friction, of hardened steel, as has been also described in a previous chapter. To make the best electromagnet we need qualities of iron just the opposite from those of the permanent magnet. For the former we need the purest of soft iron, well annealed (heated to redness and slowly cooled, making it less brittle), so that its molecules are free to turn; while for the latter we need hardened steel, so that when the molecules are once wrenched into the magnetic condition they cannot, of themselves, turn back to the neutral state. The great value of the electromagnet lies in its ability to readily discharge, or go back to the neutral state, when the current is broken. Let us now go back to the beginning of our experiment. When we closed the key and established the current through the wire we found that a piece of iron held at right angles to the wire, although not touching it, became magnetic. We have already said that when the circuit was open, the battery being in circuit, there were electrical lines of force established in the ether, between the two poles of the battery, and that they were gathered up into the conducting wire when the circuit was closed. We now find that there are other lines of force of a different nature established in the ether when the circuit is closed. These we call magnetic lines of force, or the magnetic field of the charged wire, and they are established at right angles to the direction of the current. These magnetic lines of force acting through the ether from an electrically charged conductor are able to break up the natural molecular magnetic rings, referred to in Chapter IV, and turn all their like poles in the same direction—thus making one compound magnet of the iron which in the neutral state consisted of millions of little natural magnets whose attractions were satisfied by a joining of their unlike poles. Most writers account for all of the phenomena of induced currents in a second wire as coming directly from these magnetic lines of force developed upon closing the circuit. So much for theory based upon a set of facts that make the theory seem probable. If you don't like it give us a better one. If it is correct the writer claims no credit; it is merely a compilation of suggestions from many sources, including his own experience. We are simply seeking after truth. The man who is an earnest seeker after scientific truth cannot afford to pursue his investigations with any prejudice in favor of one theory more than another, unless the facts sustain him, and then he is not acting from prejudice, but is led by the facts. Many people make pets of their theories; and they become attached to them as they do their children; and they look upon a man who destroys them by a presentation of the facts as an enemy. I once knew a lady who became so attached to her family doctor that, she said, she would rather die under his treatment, if necessary, than to be cured by any other doctor. There are many people who are imbued with this kind of spirit not only in matters scientific, but in matters religious as well. Such people are not the kind who contribute to the world's progress, but are the hindrances that have to be overcome. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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