The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1910
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]». Краткое содержание книги:
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 01 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 02 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 03 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 04 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 05 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 06 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 07 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 08 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 09 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 17 — Poetry and Drama от Неизвестный
The world's greatest books от Mee, Arthur, 1875-1943, joint editor & Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir, 1871-1949, joint editor & McClure, S. S. (Samuel Sidney), 1857-1949, joint editor
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 20 — Miscellaneous Literature and Index от Неизвестный
4. Chemical Attraction. Oil and water will not combine; they are said to have no chemical attraction or affinity for each other. But if oil and solution of potassa in water be mixed, the oil and the solution blend and form a soap; and they are said to attract each other chemically or to have a chemical affinity for each other. It is a general character of chemical combination that it changes the qualities of the bodies. Thus, corrosive and pungent substances may become mild and tasteless; solids may become fluids, and solids and fluids gases.
No body will act chemically upon another body at any sensible distance; apparent contact is necessary for chemical action. A freedom of motion in the parts of the bodies or a want of cohesion greatly assists action, and it was formerly believed that bodies cannot act chemically upon each other unless one of them be fluid or gaseous.
Different bodies unite with different degrees of force, and hence one body is capable of separating others from certain of their combinations, and in consequence mutual decompositions of different compounds take place. This has been called double affinity, or complex chemical affinity.
As in all well-known compounds the proportions of the elements are in certain definite ratios to each other, it is evident that these ratios may be expressed by numbers; and if one number be employed to denote the smallest quantity in which a body combines, all other quantities of the same body will be multiples of this number, and the smallest proportions into which the undecomposed bodies enter into union being known, the constitution of the compounds they form may be learnt, and the element which unites chemically in the smallest quantity being expressed by unity, all the other elements may be represented by the relations of their quantities to unity.
5. Electrical Attraction. A piece of dry silk briskly rubbed against a warm plate of polished flint glass acquires the property of adhering to the glass, and both the silk and the glass, if apart from each other, attract light substances. The bodies are said to be electrically excited. Probably, all bodies which differ from each other become electrically excited when rubbed and pressed together. The electrical excitement seems of two kinds. A pith-ball touched by glass excited by silk repels a pith-ball touched by silk excited by metals. Electrical excitement of the same nature as that in glass excited by silk is known as vitreous or positive, and electrical excitement of the opposite nature is known as resinous or negative.
A rod of glass touched by an electrified body is electrified only round the point of contact. A rod of metal, on the contrary, suspended on a rod of glass and brought into contact with an electrical surface, instantly becomes electrical throughout. The glass is said to be a non-conductor, or insulating substance; the metal a conductor.
When a non-conductor or imperfect conductor, provided it be a thin plate of matter placed upon a conductor, is brought in contact with an excited electrical body, the surface opposite to that of contact gains the opposite electricity from that of the excited body, and if the plate be removed it is found to possess two surfaces in opposite states. If a conductor be brought into the neighbourhood of an excited body—the air, which is a non-conductor, being between them—that extremity of the conductor which is opposite to the excited body gains the opposite electricity; and the other extremity, if opposite to a body connected with the ground, gains the same electricity, and the middle point is not electrical at all. This is known as induced electricity.
The common exhibition of electrical effects is in attractions and repulsions; but electricity also produces chemical phenomena. If a piece of zinc and copper in contact with each other at one point be placed in contact at other points with the same portion of water, the zinc will corrode, and attract oxygen from the water much more rapidly than if it had not been in contact with the copper; and if sulphuric acid be added, globules of inflammable air are given off from the copper, though it is not dissolved or acted upon.
Chemical phenomena in connection with electrical effects can be shown even better by combinations in which the electrical effects are increased by alterations of different metals and fluids—the so-called voltaic batteries. Such are the decomposing powers of such batteries that not even insoluble compounds are capable of resisting their energy, for even glass, sulphate of baryta, fluorspar, etc., are slowly acted upon, and the alkaline, earthy, or acid matter carried to the poles in the common order.
The most powerful voltaic combinations are formed by substances that act chemically with most energy upon each other, and such substances as undergo no chemical changes in the combination exhibit no electrical powers. Hence it was supposed that the electrical powers of metals were entirely due to chemical changes; but this is not the case, for contact produces electricity even when no chemical change can be observed.
II.—Radiant or Ethereal Matter
When similar thermometers are placed in different parts of the solar beam, it is found that different effects are produced in the differently coloured rays. The greatest heat is exhibited in the red rays, the least in the violet rays; and in a space beyond the red rays, where there is no visible light, the increase of temperature is greatest of all.
From these facts it is evident that matter set in motion by the sun has the power of producing heat without light, and that its rays are less refrangible than the visible rays. The invisible rays that produce heat are capable of reflection as well as refraction in the same manner as the visible rays.
Rays capable of producing heat with and without light proceed not only from the sun, but also from bodies at the surface of the globe under peculiar agencies or changes. If, for instance, a thermometer be held near an ignited body, it receives an impression connected with an elevation of temperature; this is partly produced by the conducting powers of the air, and partly by an impulse which is instantaneously communicated, even to a considerable distance. This effect is called the radiation of terrestrial heat.
The manner in which the temperatures of bodies are affected by rays producing heat is different for different substances, and is very much connected with their colours. The bodies that absorb most light, and reflect least, are most heated when exposed either to solar or terrestrial rays. Black bodies are, in general, more heated than red; red more than green; green more than yellow; and yellow more than white. Metals are less heated than earthy or stony bodies, or than animal or vegetable matters. Polished surfaces are less heated than rough surfaces.
The bodies that have their temperatures most easily raised by heat rays are likewise those that are most easily cooled by their own radiation, or that at the same temperature emit most heat-making rays. Metals radiate less heat than glass, glass less than vegetable substances, and charcoal has the highest radiating powers of any body as yet made the subject of experiment.
Radiant matter has the power of producing chemical changes partly through its heating power, and partly through some other specific and peculiar influence. Thus chlorine and hydrogen detonate when a mixture of them is exposed to the solar beams, even though the heat is inadequate to produce detonation.
If moistened silver be exposed to the different rays of the solar spectrum, it will be found that no effect is produced upon it by the least refrangible rays which occasion heat without light; that a slight discoloration only will be produced by the red rays; that the effect of blackening will be greater towards the violet end of the spectrum; and that in a space beyond the violet, where there is no sensible heat or light, the chemical effect will be very distinct. There seem to be rays, therefore, more refrangible than the rays producing light and heat.