The Unknown Force (speculative title)

The Mighty … Still a Puzzle … to Tackle the Dim …

Such an authority as Sir William Crookes, President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, England, is yet in doubt as to the various theories advanced to explain the electric phenomena. He says: “We know little as yet concerning the mighty agency of electricity.” In his recent presidential address there is much of interest to the engineer, and I quote the following from the Railroad Gazette:

“We have happily outgrown the preposterous notion that research in any department of science is mere waste of time. It is now generally admitted that pure science, irrespective of practical applications, benefits both the investigator himself and greatly enriches the community. ‘It blesseth him that giveth and him that taketh.’ Between the frog’s leg quivering on Galvani’s work table and the successful telegraph or telephone there exists a direct affiliation. Without the one we could not have the other.

“We know little as yet concerning the mighty agency of electricity. ‘Substantialists’ tell us it is a kind of matter. Others view it, not as matter, but as a form of energy. Others, again, reject both these views. Professor Lodge considers it ‘a form or rather a mode of manifestation of the ether.’ Professor Nikola Tesla demurs to the view of Professor Lodge, but thinks that ‘nothing stands in the way of our calling electricity ether associated with matter, bound ether.’ High authorities cannot even yet agree whether we have one electricity or two opposite electricities. The only way to tackle the difficulty is to persevere in experiment and observation. If we never learn what electricity is, if, like life or like matter, it should remain an unknown quantity, we shall assuredly discover more about its attributes and its functions.

“Experimentalists are reducing the wave lengths of the electrical radiation. With every diminution in size of the apparatus the wave lengths get shorter, and could we construct Leyden jars of molecular dimensions, the rays might fall within the narrow limits of visibility. We do not yet know how a molecule could be got to act as a Leyden jar, yet it is not improbable that the discontinuous phosphorescent light emitted from certain of the rare earths, when excited by a high tension current in a high vacuum, is really an artificial production of these electrical rays, sufficiently short to affect our organs of sight. If such a light could be produced more easily and more regularly, it would be far more economical than light from a flame or from the arc, as very little of the energy in play is expended in the form of heat rays. Of such production of light, nature supplies us with examples in the glow worms and the fireflies. Their light, though sufficiently energetic to be seen at a considerable distance, is accompanied by no liberation of heat capable of detection by our most delicate instruments.

“Alternating currents have at the best a rather doubtful reputation, but it follows from Tesla’s researches that as the rapidity of the alternation increases they become not more dangerous, but less so. It further appears that a true flame can now be produced without chemical aid — a flame which yields light and heat without the consumption of matter and without any chemical process. To this end we require improved methods for producing excessively frequent alternations and enormous potentials. Shall we be able to obtain these by tapping the ether? If so, we may view the prospective exhaustion of our coal fields with indifference. We shall at once solve the smoke question, and thus dissolve all possible coal rings. Electricity seems destined to annex the whole field, not merely of optics, but probably also of thermotics. Rays of light will not pass through a wall, nor, as we know only too well, through a dense fog. But the electrical rays of a foot or two in length of which we have spoken can easily pierce such mediums, which to them will be transparent.”