MYSTERIOUS ETHER

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 22, 16 December 1927, Page 11

MYSTERIOUS ETHER

| INVISIBLE, BUT EVERYWHERE. Scientists postulate the theory that radio waves, like light waves, travel through a medium other than our atmosphere. They term this mysterious medium "ether." They say it is an imperceptible medium which pervades all space and matter. It is possible to liken it to a jelly in a jar, which, when shaken, vibrates the jelly in wumnison with the vibrating source.. The above jelly analogy may be extended by placing a wire in the jelly and vibrating it, causing the jelly in its immediate vicinity, by reason of friction, to vibrate in sympathy with it. As a matter of fact, no energy in the true sense leaves the transmitter aerial, although two effects are caused in the medium surrounding it, namely, vertically and horizontally polarised ‘waves,’ otherwise called the magnetic and static fields. LENZ’S LAW. If Lenz’s law is now used we see how these magnetic lines of force cut a conductor (the magnetic field cutting the stationary receiver aerial as _ it passes with the speed of light), aud as a result causes current flow if it is a closed circuit, this latter is not applicable, as the aerial circuit is most usually an open oscillator, but a voltage is impressed on it, which in turn charges the grid of the valve of the receiving set either positively or negatively.