Vibrations.—Every manifestation in nature is by way of vibration. The beating of the heart, the action of the legs in walking, the winking of the eyelid; the impulses from the sun, which we call light; sound, taste and color appeal to our senses by vibratory means, and, as we have hereinbefore stated, the manifestations of electricity and magnetism are merely vibrations of different wave lengths.
The Acoustic Telephone.—That sound is merely a product of vibrations may be proven in many ways. One of the earliest forms of telephones was simply a "sound" telephone, called the Acoustic Telephone. The principle of this may be illustrated as follows:
Take two cups (A, B), as in Fig. [78], punch a small hole through the bottom of each, and run a string or wire (C) from the hole of one cup to that of the other, and secure it at both ends so it may be drawn taut. Now, by talking into the cup (A) the bottom of it will vibrate to and fro, as shown by the dotted lines and thereby cause the bottom of the other cup (B) to vibrate[p. 111] in like manner, and in so vibrating it will receive not only the same amplitude, but also the same character of vibrations as the cup (A) gave forth.
Sound Waves.—Sound waves are long and short; the long waves giving sounds which are low in the musical scale, and the short waves high musical tones. You may easily determine this by the following experiment:
Stretch a wire, as at B (Fig. [79]), fairly tight, and then vibrate it. The amplitude of the vibration will be as indicated by dotted line A. Now, stretch it very tight, as at C, so that the amplitude of vibration will be as shown at E. By putting your ear close to the string you will find that while A has a low pitch, C is very much higher. This[p. 112] is the principle on which stringed instruments are built. You will note that the wave length, which represents the distance between the dotted lines A is much greater than E.
Hearing Electricity.—In electricity, mechanism has been made to enable man to note the action of the current. By means of the armature, vibrating in front of a magnet, we can see its manifestations. It is now but a step to devise some means whereby we may hear it. In this, as in everything else electrically, the magnet comes into play.