On the heating effects of electricity and magnetism / W.R. Grove.

  • William Robert Grove
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the heating effects of electricity and magnetism / W.R. Grove. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the surface of the water and immediately withdrawn to a distance of about quarter of an inch ; the discharge took place, the extremity of the platinum wire was fused and the molten platinum attached to the wire but kept up by the peculiar repulsive effect of the discharge was exhibited, as it were, suspended in mid-air, giving an intense light, throwing off scintillations in directions away from the water and only detaching itself from the wire when agitated. Here water in the vaporous state must be transferred, for the immersed electrode gave off gas, without doubt oxygen, and the molecular action on the negative fused platinum resembled, if it were not identical in character with the currents observed on the surface of mercury when made negative in an electrolyte. It may be objected to the theory proposed, that electrical effects are obtained in what is called a vacuum, where there is no inter- medium to be polarized ; but this objection, though not applicable to the projection of the terminals, could hardly be discussed until experimentalists had gone much further than at present in the production of a vacuum ; the experiments of Davy and others had shewn that we are far off from obtaining any thing like a vacuum where delicate investigations are concerned. The view of the antient philosophers that Nature abhors a vacuum which had been much cavilled at, and was supposed to be exploded by the discovery of Torricelli, Mr. Grove thought had been unjustly censured : giving the expression some degree of meta- phorical license, it afforded a fine evidence of the extent and accuracy of observation of those who were unacquainted with inductive philosophy as a system, but who necessarily pursued it in practice. Whether a vacuum was possible might be an open question, experi- mentally it was unknown. Lastly, in answer to those who might ask, to what practical results do researches such as these lead ? what accession of physical comfort or luxury do they bring ? Mr. Grove took occasion to offer his humble protest against opinions now perhaps too generally prevalent, that science was to be viewed only or mainly in its utili- tarian or practical bearings. Even regarding it in this aspect, were it not for the devotion which the love of knowledge, which the yearning anxiety to penetrate into the mysteries of our being and of surrounding existences induced; the practical results of science would not have been attained ; the band of Martyrs to Science from Socrates to Galileo would not have thought and suffered without a higher incentive than the acquisition of utilitarian results : without disparaging these results, indeed regarding them as necessary consequences of any advance in scientific knowledge, he considered that the love of truth and knowledge for themselves was the great animating principle of those who rightly pursued science ; that, based upon an enduring quality of our common nature, this feeling was rooted in far firmer foundations, that it led to greater and more self sacrificing exertions, than any capable of being induced by the hopes of augmenting social acquisitions, and was an attribute and an evidence of the non-transient part of our being. [W. R. G.]