On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other

by Michael Faraday

Fig. 40.

Fig. 41.

And now we will return for a short time to the subject treated of at the commencement of this lecture. You see here (fig. 41) a large machine, arranged for the purpose of rubbing glass with silk, and for obtaining the power called electricity; and the moment the handle of the machine is turned, a certain amount of electricity is evolved, as you will see by the rise of the little straw indicator (at A). Now, I know from the appearance of repulsion of the pith ball at the end of the straw, that electricity is present in those brass conductors (B B), and I want you to see the manner in which that electricity can pass away. [Touching the conductor (B) with his finger, the Lecturer drew a spark from it, and the straw electrometer immediately fell.] There, it has all gone; and that I have really taken it away, you shall see by an experiment of this sort. If I hold this cylinder of brass by the glass handle, and touch the conductor with it, I take away a little of the electricity. You see the spark in which it passes, and observe that the pith-ball indicator has fallen a little, which seems to imply that so much electricity is lost; but it is not lost: it is here in this brass; and I can take it away and carry it about, not because it has any substance of its own, but by some strange property which we have not before met with as belonging to any other force. Let us see whether we have it here or not. [The Lecturer brought the charged cylinder to a jet from which gas was issuing; the spark was seen to pass from the cylinder to the jet, but the gas did not light.] Ah! the gas did not light, but you saw the spark; there is, perhaps, some draught in the room which blew the gas on one side, or else it would light. We will try this experiment afterwards. You see from the spark that I can transfer the power from the machine to this cylinder, and then carry it away and give it to some other body. You know very well, as a matter of experiment, that we can transfer the power of heat from one thing to another; for if I put my hand near the fire it becomes hot. I can shew you this by placing before us this ball, which has just been brought red-hot from the fire. If I press this wire to it, some of the heat will be transferred from the ball; and I have only now to touch this piece of gun-cotton with the hot wire, and you see how I can transfer the heat from the ball to the wire, and from the wire to the cotton. So you see that some powers are transferable, and others are not. Observe how long the heat stops in this ball. I might touch it with the wire, or with my finger, and if I did so quickly, I should merely burn the surface of the skin; whereas, if I touch that cylinder, however rapidly, with my finger, the electricity is gone at once—dispersed on the instant, in a manner wonderful to think of.

Fig. 42.

I must now take up a little of your time in shewing you the manner in which these powers are transferred from one thing to another; for the manner in which force may be conducted or transmitted is extraordinary, and most essential for us to understand. Let us see in what manner these powers travel from place to place. Both heat and electricity can be conducted; and here is an arrangement I have made to shew how the former can travel. It consists of a bar of copper (fig. 42); and if I take a spirit-lamp (this is one way of obtaining the power of heat), and place it under that little chimney, the flame will strike against the bar of copper and keep it hot. Now, you are aware that power is being transferred from the flame of that lamp to the copper, and you will see by-and-by that it is being conducted along the copper from particle to particle; for, inasmuch as I have fastened these wooden balls by a little wax at particular distances from the point where the copper is first heated, first one ball will fall, and then the more distant ones, as the heat travels along—and thus you will learn that the heat travels gradually through the copper. You will see that this is a very slow conduction of power, as compared with electricity. If I take cylinders of wood and metal, joined together at the ends, and wrap a piece of paper round, and then apply the heat of this lamp to the place where the metal and wood join, you will see how the heat will accumulate where the wood is, and burn the paper with which I have covered it; but where the metal is beneath, the heat is conducted away too fast for the paper to be burned. And so, if I take a piece of wood and a piece of metal joined together, and put it so that the flame should play equally both upon one and the other, we shall soon find that the metal will become hot before the wood; for if I put a piece of phosphorus on the wood, and another piece on the copper, you will find that the phosphorus on the copper will take fire before that on the wood is melted—and this shews you how badly the wood conducts heat. But with regard to the travelling of electricity from place to place, its rapidity is astonishing. I will, first of all, take these pieces of glass and metal, and you will soon understand how it is that the glass does not lose the power which it acquired when it is rubbed by the silk. By one or two experiments I will shew you. If I take this piece of brass and bring it near the machine, you see how the electricity leaves the latter, and passes to the brass cylinder. And, again, if I take a rod of metal and touch the machine with it, I lower the indicator; but when I touch it with a rod of glass, no power is drawn away,—shewing you that the electricity is conducted by the glass and the metal in a manner entirely different: and to make you see that more clearly, we will take one of our Leyden jars. Now, I must not embarrass your minds with this subject too much; but if I take a piece of metal, and bring it against the knob at the top and the metallic coating at the bottom, you will see the electricity passing through the air as a brilliant spark. It takes no sensible time to pass through this; and if I were to take a long metallic wire, no matter what the length—at least as far as we are concerned—and if I make one end of it touch the outside, and the other touch the knob at the top, see how the electricity passes!—it has flashed instantaneously through the whole length of this wire. Is not this different from the transmission of heat through this copper bar (fig. 42), which has taken a quarter of an hour or more to reach the first ball?

Fig. 43.