Molecular vibration

“ This molecular vibration is revealed to us as heat, light, sound, electricity. Heat is only a mode of this invisible motion of the particles of matter. Mass motion is quickly converted into this molecular motion when two bodies strike each other. May not life itself be the outcome of a peculiar whirl of the ultimate atoms of matter? ”

“ W. Mattieu Williams, must we suppose the existence of a luminiferous ether distinct from other matter, when it is just as easy to account for the phenomena of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical force as "modes of activity of ordinary matter, analogous to the waves of sound," but differing from them by being molecular vibrations, while sound is molar vibration? Gaseous matter being infinitely expansible in the presence of radiant heat, there is no difficulty in imagining space filled with ordinary gases thus expanded, and performing all the functions ascribed to the ether. ”

“ And, now that heat and light are proved to be modes of motion, it has become obvious that all the allied manifestations of force must be modes of motion.
What is the particular mode of motion which constitutes electricity, thus becomes the question. That it is some kind of molecular vibration, different from the molecular vibrations which luminous bodies give off, is, I presume, taken for granted by all who bring to the consideration of the matter a knowledge of recent discoveries. ”

“ It is important to observe that the existence of molecular vibrations of ponderable matter, due to the passage of light through the medium, will not affect the reasoning by which this equation has been established, provided that the nature and intensity of these vibrations in any small part of the medium (as measured by a wave-length) are entirely determined by the electrical forces and motions in that part of the medium. But the equation would not hold in case of molecular vibrations due to magnetic force. ”

“ Among the several elements concerned, there are wide differences in molecular mobility, and probably in the rates of molecular vibration. Each is combined with one of the others, but is capable of forming various combinations with the rest. And they are severally in presence of a complex compound into which they all enter, and which is ready to assimilate with itself the new compound molecules they form. Certain of the ethereal waves falling on them when thus arranged, cause a detachment of some of the combined atoms and a union of the rest. ”

“ I have proved that all bodies, solid, liquid, and gaseous, are in a state of molecular agitation when under the influence of sonorous vibrations; no matter if it is a piece of board, walls of a house, street, fields or woods, sea or air, all are in this constant state of vibration, which simply becomes more evident as the sonorous vibrations are more powerful. ”

“ It is not, however, obvious that the sudden change of direction in the translatory motion, which is commonly called a molecular shock, necessarily also affects the phase of vibration. Experiments which will be discussed in § 10 seem to show that there is a difference in this respect between the impacts of similar and those of dissimilar molecules. When the lines are obtained under circumstances which tend towards sharpness and homogeneity they are often found to possess complicated structures, single lines breaking up into two or more components of varying intensities. ”

“ Mechanical vibration will transform B into A, and with positive fatigued substances this ought to produce an increase of resistance (as A is less conducting than B) ; with negative substances the same disturbance ought to produce a diminution of resistance.
Effect of Heat.—There are other methods by which the B variety may be transformed into A; the more subtle molecular disturbance due to heat may be expected to be even more effective in producing the transformation. ”

“ External disturbances or stimuli impinging on a substance induce a molecular upset, the effectiveness of the stimulus depending on the rapidity of the onset of the disturbance. The molecular upset is attended by changes induced in the properties of the substance. The most sensitive means for its detection is electrical: by the method of conductivity or of electromotive variation (p. 170) .
Stimulation of the substance can be produced by electric radiation, by visible light, and by mechanical vibration. ”

“ This illustration will, I think, make it manifest that when a mass of molecules which have a certain period of vibration, is placed in contact with a mass of molecules which have another period of vibration, there must result an alternation of coincidences and antagonisms in the molecular motions, such as will make the molecules alternately increase and decrease one another’s motions. There will be instants at which they are moving in the same direction, and intervening instants at which they are moving in opposite directions ”

“ It did not matter in the least whether the vibration commenced with a right- or left-handed twist.
It may be stated here that similar electromotive variation is obtained by molecular disturbance produced by a tap.
I shall now describe the effect of mechanical stimulus of varying intensities and durations. The intensity may be varied by varying the amplitude of vibration. We shall also study the effect of a single stimulus, or the summated effect of rapidly succeeding stimuli. ”

“ As the wire A is separate from B, disturbance of one will not affect the other. Vibration of A produces a current in one direction, vibration of B in the opposite direction. Thus we have means of verifying every experiment by obtaining corroborative and reversed effects. When the two wires have been brought to exactly the same molecular condition by the processes of annealing or stretching, the effects obtained on subjecting A or B to any given stimulus are always equal (fig. 56) . ”

“ I contend that it was placed there at the birth of the molecule by the law of sympathetic etheric focalization towards the negative centres of neutrality with a velocity as inconceivable in its character as would be the subdivision of matter to an ultimate end. Again, what is the energy that is held in the molecular embrace of that small portion of dynamite which by slight concussion, another order of vibration, evolves volumes of terrific force, riving the solid rock and hurling massive projectiles for miles? If it is not latent power that is excited into action, what is it? ”

“ The intensity of the electrical variation produced by a given disturbance is modified by the molecular condition of the wire. Annealing, or previous continued vibration, enhances the electric effect. The abnormal response due to molecular modification is transformed into normal by continued vibration. The intensity of electromotive variation is increased with increasing intensity of stimulation. ”

“ The improvement in sensitiveness often obtained by shaking of the particles is no doubt due to the same cause. In the various types of molecular receivers, whether responding to electric radiation, light, or mechanical vibration, similar effect is observed. The receiver generally speaking, improves gradually with working ”

“ So that motion is essential to matter, is equally indestructible, and is directly proportional to its mass. He held that light, heat, sound, and the excitations of smell and taste, are all the results of molecular motion or vibration, as are also the agencies of electricity, magnetism, and gravitation. ”

“ If two dissimilar molecules encounter, the relative phase of the vibrations, and hence the forces, will constantly change. Attraction will rapidly follow repulsion, and the whole average effect will be much smaller than in the case of two atoms of the same kind. We have no clear notion how such differences may act, and we must have recourse to experiment to decide whether any change in the effect of an encounter is observed when a molecule of a different kind is substituted for a molecule having the same periods of vibration. ”

“ The qualification that the circular function must apply to all time is important, and unless it is recognized as a necessary condition of homogeneity, confusion in the more intricate problems or radiation becomes inevitable. Thus if a molecule were set into vibration at a specified time and oscillated according to the above equation during a finite period, it would not send out homogeneous vibrations. ”

“ The problem we have to explain is, how a molecule traveling at the rate of 1,512 feet a second through a mean path of 8/100000 of an inch, and colliding seventeen billion or million times a second, can, by the vibration of the C3 fork, be made to vibrate so as to have a pendulous motion for 1/256 of a second and vibrate through a distance of 1/50 to the 1/1000000 of an inch without being changed or mar its harmonic motion. ”

“ Electro-magnetic, that is Hertzian or radio vibrations, can affect the very atomic structure of certain metals. Radio-active or gamma vibrations have a profound power of disintegrating or breaking down the great majority of chemical compounds. All these we tested, but in none of them did we find the vibration whose force would cause the building up of protoplasm's organic compounds from the sea-silt inorganic elements. It was only when we tried the last remaining etheric vibration known, the most recently discovered of all, the cosmic ray vibrations, that we succeeded at last. ”

“ On these suppositions, we should have the phenomena of conduction explained; for if the molecules at one end of a bar be hot, and therefore in a state of vibration, while the others are at rest, the vibrating molecules propagate vibrations in the ether, but these vibrations do not produce heat, except in proportion as they put the quiescent molecules of the bar in vibration; and the ether being very rare compared with the molecules, it is only by the repeated impulses of many successive vibrations that the nearest quiescent molecules are made to vibrate ”

“ A molecular medium, moving under such conditions that a group of molecules once near together remain near each other during the whole motion, may be capable of transmitting vibrations without much dissipation of energy, but if the motion is such that the groups of molecules are not merely slightly altered in configuration but entirely broken up, so that their component molecules pass into new types of grouping, then in the passage from one type of grouping to another the energy of regular vibrations will be frittered away into that of the irregular agitation which we call heat. ”

“ These molecules, whether the string vibrates or not, have already their own activity and their own mutual action; only their actions balance each other as long as the mass of air is at rest. But when the string begins to vibrate, the equilibrium being broken near it, those molecules of air which first cease to be in equilibrium begin to act on the following molecules with a different intensity, according to the change of the molecular distance. Thus the movement by which the distance is altered is not the cause, but the condition, of the phenomenon. ”

“ We know from those spectroscopic researches which have thrown so much light on different branches of science, that a molecule can be set into a state of internal vibration, in which it gives off to the surrounding medium light of definite refrangibility—light, that is, of definite wave-length and definite period of vibration. ”

“ It is very likely that resonant vibration plays a most important part in all manifestations of energy in nature. Throughout space all matter is vibrating, and all rates of vibration are represented, from the lowest musical note to the highest pitch of the chemical rays, hence an atom, or complex of atoms, no matter what its period, must find a vibration with which it is in resonance. ”

“ The affected electrons are set into increased vibration and acquire an excess of force above that of the neighbouring electrons. For, the faster a substance vibrates, the more its force increases—a fact with which we are familiar in the action of boiling water and the generation of steam. In proportion as the affected part exceeds the adjoining parts in the vibration of its electrons, it becomes more positive than they and gradually involves these adjoining electrons in the accelerated process of vibration. ”

“ The action of the magnetic flow is dual in its evolutions, both attractive and propulsive. The sound vibrations of themselves have no power whatever to induce dissociation, even in its lowest form. Certain differential, dual, triple and quadruple, chords give introductory impulses which excite an action on molecular masses, liquid and gaseous, that increase their range of molecular motion and put them in that receptive state for sympathetic vibratory interchange which favours molecular disintegration ”

“ The transmission of sympathetic atomic vibration, through a triple nodal transmitter, induces an inter-atomic percussion, that results in triple atomic subdivision, not oscillating across the diameter of the atom, but accelerating to an infinite degree the atomic film that surrounds it and at the same time extending the vibratory range of the atom far enough to set free the gaseous atomic element. ”

“ The bright lines of the spectrum of an incandescent gas are therefore due to the harmonic vibrations of the molecules of the gas during their free paths. The only effect of the motion of the centre of mass of the molecule is to alter the time of vibration of the light as received by a stationary observer. ”