Quote: light is electromagnetic waves: the speed of electromagnetic waves experimentally agrees with the speed of light in a vacuum, and neither experiment depended on the other view

Quotation

(96) ... By the electromagnetic experiments of MM. Weber and Kohlrausch [ref], v=310,740,000 metres per second is the number of electrostatic units in one electromagnetic unit of electricity, and this, according to our result, should be equal to the velocity of light in air or vacuum. The velocity of light in air ... according to the more accurate experiments of M. Foucault [ref], V=298,000,000. The velocity of light in the space surrounding the earth, deduced from the coefficient of aberration and the received value of the radius of the earth's orbit, is V = 308,000,000. (97) Hence the velocity of light deduced from experiment agrees sufficiently well with the value of v deduced from the only set of experiments we as yet possess. The value of v was determined by measuring the electromotive force with which a condenser of known capacity was charged, and the discharging the condenser through a galvanometer, so as to measure the quantity of electricity in it in electromagnetic measure. The only use made of light in the experiment was to see the instruments. The value of V found by M. Foucault was obtained by determining the angle through which a revolving mirror turned, while the light reflected from it went and returned along a measured course. No use what ever was made of electricity of magnetism. The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

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Topic: light (37 items)