The two classes into which quartz-crystals are divided have been already mentioned. In my hand I hold a compound plate, one half of it taken from a right-handed, and the other from a left-handed crystal. Placing the plate in front of the polarizer, I turn one of the Nicols until the two halves of the plate show a common puce colour. This yields an exceedingly sensitive means of rendering visible the action of a magnet upon light. By turning either the polarizer or the analyzer through the smallest angle, the uniformity of the colour disappears, and the two halves of the quartz show different colours. The magnet produces an effect equivalent to this rotation. The puce-coloured circle is now before you on the screen. (See fig. 44, where N is the nozzle of the lamp, H the first Nicol, Q the biquartz plate, L a lens, M the electro-magnet, with the heavy glass across its perforated poles, and P the second Nicol.) Exciting the magnet, one half of the image becomes suddenly red, the other half green. Interrupting the current, the two colours fade away, and the primitive puce is restored.
The action, moreover, depends upon the polarity of the magnet, or, in other words, on the direction of the current which surrounds the magnet. Reversing the current, the red and green reappear, but they have changed places. The red was formerly to the right, and the green to the left; the green is now to the right, and the red to the left. With the most exquisite ingenuity, Faraday analyzed all those actions and stated their laws. This experiment, however, long remained a scientific curiosity rather than a fruitful germ. That it would bear fruit of the highest importance, Faraday felt profoundly convinced, and present researches are on the way to verify his conviction.
§ 9. Iris-rings surrounding the Axes of Crystals.
A few more words are necessary to complete our knowledge of the wonderful interaction between ponderable molecules and the ether interfused among them. Symmetry of molecular arrangement implies symmetry on the part of the ether; atomic dissymmetry, on the other hand, involves the dissymmetry of the ether, and, as a consequence, double refraction. In a certain class of crystals the structure is homogeneous, and such crystals produce no double refraction. In certain other crystals the molecules are ranged symmetrically round a certain line, and not around others. Along the former, therefore, the ray is undivided, while along all the others we have double refraction. Ice is a familiar example: its molecules are built with perfect symmetry around the perpendiculars to the planes of freezing, and a ray sent through ice in this direction is not doubly refracted; whereas, in all other directions, it is. Iceland spar is another example of the same kind: its molecules are built symmetrically round the line uniting the two blunt angles of the rhomb. In this direction a ray suffers no double refraction, in all others it does. This direction of no double refraction is called the optic axis of the crystal.
Hence, if a plate be cut from a crystal of Iceland spar perpendicular to the axis, all rays sent across this plate in the direction of the axis will produce but one image. But, the moment we deviate from the parallelism with the axis, double refraction sets in. If, therefore, a beam that has been rendered conical by a converging lens be sent through the spar so that the central ray of the cone passes along the axis, this ray only will escape double refraction. Each of the others will be divided into an ordinary and an extraordinary ray, the one moving more slowly through the crystal than the other; the one, therefore, retarded with reference to the other. Here, then, we have the conditions for interference, when the waves are reduced by the analyzer to a common plane.
Placing the plate of Iceland spar between the crossed Nicol prisms, and employing the conical beam, we have upon the screen a beautiful system of iris-rings surrounding the end of the optic axis, the circular bands of colour being intersected by a black cross (fig. 45). The arms of this cross are parallel to the two directions of vibration in the polarizer and analyzer. It is easy to see that those rays whose planes of vibration within the spar coincide with the plane of vibration of either prism, cannot get through both. This complete interception produces the arms of the cross.
Fig. 45.
With monochromatic light the rings would be simply bright and black—the bright rings occurring at those thicknesses of the spar which cause the rays to conspire; the black rings at those thicknesses which cause them to quench each other. Turning the analyzer 90° round, we obtain the complementary phenomena. The black cross gives place to a bright one, and every dark ring is supplanted also by a bright one (fig. 46). Here, as elsewhere, the different lengths of the light-waves give rise to iris-colours when white light is employed.
