On Radiant Matter (Classic Reprint): A Lecture Delivered to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879 - Couverture souple

William Crookes

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1332239374 ISBN 13 : 9781332239375

Editeur : Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Discover how a famous experiment probes matter at extreme emptiness and reveals a fourth state of matter. This edition guides you through ideas that connect early gas theory to dramatic visible effects, from luminous phosphorescence to focused heat and motion.

In the lecture, the author explains how gases under very low pressure behave differently, allowing molecules to move largely without collisions. He introduces Radiant Matter as a distinct state and shows how it can illuminate, cast shadows, and even move light objects. The demonstrations range from glowing glass and minerals to vivid focal heating, all driven by a highly exhausted gas environment.

- See how the mean free path of molecules changes with pressure and why that matters for observing new phenomena.
- Learn how Radiant Matter excites phosphorescence in glass and other substances, and which materials respond most vividly.
- Explore how shadows, focal lines, and mechanical effects reveal the power of molecular streams.
- Understand how heat and chemical interactions emerge in high vacuum during these experiments.

Ideal for readers curious about the origins of modern ideas on matter, vacuum physics, and early radiometric demonstrations from the 19th century edition.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Excerpt from On Radiant Matter: A Lecture Delivered to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879

To throw light on the title of this lecture I must go back more than sixty years – to 1816. Faraday, then a mere student and ardent experimentalist, was 24 years old, and at this early period of his career he delivered a series of lectures on the General Properties of Matter, and one of them bore the remarkable title, On Radiant Matter. The great philosopher's notes of this lecture are to be found in Dr. Bence Jones's Life and Letters of Faraday, and I will here quote a passage in which he first employs the expression Radiant Matter: -

"If we conceive a change as far beyond vaporisation as that is above fluidity, and then take into account also the proportional increased extent of alteration as the changes rise, we shall perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not fall far short of Radiant Matter; and as in the last conversion many qualities were lost, so here also many more would disappear."

Faraday was evidently engrossed with this far-reaching speculation, for three years later – in 1819 – we find him bringing fresh evidence and argument to strengthen his startling hypothesis. His notes are now more extended, and they show that in the intervening three years he had thought much and deeply on this higher form of matter. He first points out that matter may be classed into four states – solid, liquid, gaseous, and radiant – these modifications depending upon differences in their several essential properties. He admits that the existence of Radiant Matter is as yet unproved, and then proceeds, in a series of ingenious analogical arguments, to show the probability of its existence.

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Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Forgotten Books
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1332239374
• ISBN 13: 9781332239375
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 36
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