Now, the velocity of light, in round numbers, is 186,000 miles per second. Reducing this to inches, and multiplying the number thus found by 39,000, we find the number of waves of the extreme red, in 186,000 miles, to be four hundred and sixty millions of millions. All these waves enter the eye, and strike the retina at the back of the eye in one second. In a similar manner, it may be found that the number of shocks corresponding to the impression of violet is six hundred and seventy-eight millions of millions.
All space is filled with matter oscillating at such rates. From every star waves of these dimensions move, with the velocity of light, like spherical shells in all directions. And in ether, just as in water, the motion of every particle is the algebraic sum of all the separate motions imparted to it. One motion does not blot out the other; or, if extinction occur at one point, it is strictly atoned for, by augmented motion, at some other point. Every star declares by its light its undamaged individuality, as if it alone had sent its thrills through space.
§ 6. Interference of Light.
Fig. 11.
The principle of interference, as just stated, applies to the waves of light as it does to the waves of water and the waves of sound. And the conditions of interference are the same in all three. If two series of light-waves of the same length start at the same moment from a common origin (say A, fig. 11), crest coincides with crest, sinus with sinus, and the two systems blend together to a single system (A m n) of double amplitude. If both series start at the same moment, one of them being, at starting, a whole wavelength in advance of the other, they also add themselves together, and we have an augmented luminous effect. The same occurs when the one system of waves is any even number of semi-undulations in advance of the other. But if the one system be half a wave-length (as at A' a', fig. 12), or any odd number of half wavelengths, in advance, then the crests of the one fall upon the sinuses of the other; the one system, in fact, tends to lift the particles of ether at the precise places where the other tends to depress them; hence, through the joint action of these opposing forces (indicated by the arrows) the light-ether remains perfectly still. This stillness of the ether is what we call darkness, which corresponds with a dead level in the case of water.
Fig. 12.
It was said in our first lecture, with reference to the colours produced by absorption, that the function of natural bodies is selective, not creative; that they extinguish certain constituents of the white solar light, and appear in the colours of the unextinguished light. It must at once occur to you that, inasmuch as we have in interference an agency by which light may be self-extinguished, we may have in it the conditions for the production of colour. But this would imply that certain constituents are quenched by interference, while others are permitted to remain. This is the fact; and it is entirely due to the difference in the lengths of the waves of light.