The light emitted from burning gases which burn with bright flame is
known to be a secondary phenomenon. It is the solid, or even liquid,
constituents separated out by the high temperature of combustion, and
rendered incandescent, that emit the light rays. Gases, on the other
hand, which produce no glowing solid or liquid particles during
combustion burn throughout with a weakly luminous flame of bluish or
other color, according to the kind of gas. Now, it is common to say,
merely, in explanation of this luminosity, that the gas highly heated in
combustion is self-incandescent. This explanation, however, has not been
experimentally confirmed. Dr Werner Siemens was, therefore, led recently
to investigate whether highly-heated pure gases really emit light.
The temperature employed in such experiments should, to be decisive,
be higher than those produced by luminous combustion. The author had
recourse to the regenerative furnace used by his brother, Friedrich, in
Dresden, in manufacture of hard glass. This stands in a separate room
which at night can be made perfectly dark. The furnace has, in the
middle of its longer sides, two opposite apertures, allowing free vision
through. It can be easily heated to the melting temperature of steel,
which is between 1,500° and 2,000° C. Before the furnace apertures were
placed a series of smoke blackened screens with central openings, which
enabled one to look through without receiving, on the eye, rays from the
furnace walls. If, now, all air exchange was prevented in the furnace,
and all light excluded from the room, it was found that not the least
light came to the eye from the highly-heated air in the furnace. For
success of the experiment, it was necessary to avoid any combustion in
the furnace, and to wait until the furnace-air was as free from dust as
possible. Any flame in the furnace (even when it did not reach into the
line of sight), and the least quantity of dust in it, illuminated the
field of vision.
As a result of these experiments, Dr. Siemens considers that the view
hitherto held, that highly-heated gases are self-luminous, is not
correct. In the furnace were the products of the previous combustion
and atmospheric air: consequently oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid, and
aqueous vapor. If even one of these gases was self-luminous, the field
of vision must have been always illuminated. The weak light given by
the flame of burning gases that separate out no solid nor liquid
constituents cannot, therefore, be explained as a phenomenon of glow of
the gaseous products.
It appealed to the author probable, that heated gases did not, either,
emit heat rays; and he set himself to test this idea, experimenting, in
company with Herr Fröhlich, in Dresden. They first convinced themselves
in this case that the light emission of pure heated gases sunk to zero,
even when the field of vision was not always quite dark, and it was
only possible to observe this a short time; but the repeatedly observed
perfect darkness of the field of vision was demonstrative. On the other
hand, experiments made with sensitive thermopiles, in order to settle
the question of emission of heat-rays from highly-heated gases, failed.
Afterward, however, Dr. Siemens was convinced, by a quite simple
experiment of a different kind, that his supposition was erroneous. An
ordinary lamp, with circular wick, and short glass cylinder, was wholly
screened with a board, and a thermopile was so placed that its axis lay
somewhat higher than the edge of the board. As the room-walls had pretty
much a uniform temperature, the deflection of the galvanometer was but
slight, when the tube-axis of the thermopile was directed anywhere
outside of the hot-air current rising from the flame. When, however, the
axis was directed to this current, a deflection occurred, which was as
great as that from the luminous flame itself. That the heat radiation
from hot gases is but very small in comparison with that from equally
hot solid bodies, was shown by the large deflection produced when a
piece of fine wire was held in the hot-air current. On the other hand,
however, it was far too considerable to admit of being attributed to
dust particles suspended in the air current.
It must be conceded to be possible (the author says) that the light
radiation of hot gases, as also the heat radiation, is only exceedingly
weak, and therefore may escape observation. It is, therefore, much to
be desired that the experiments should be repeated at still higher
temperatures and with more exact instruments, in order to determine
the limit of temperature at which heated gases undoubtedly become
self-incandescent. The fact, however, that gases, at a temperature of
more than 1,500° C, are not yet luminous, proves that the incandescence
of the flame is not to be explained as a self-incandescence of the
products of combustion. This is confirmed by the circumstance that, with
rapid mixture of the burning gases, the flame becomes shorter because
the combustion process goes on more quickly, and hotter because less
cold air has access. Further, the flame also becomes shorter and hotter
if the gases are strongly heated previous to combustion. As the rising
products of combustion still retain for a time the temperature of the
flame, the reverse must occur if the gases were self-luminous. The
luminosity of the flame, however, ceases at a sharp line of demarkation,
and evidently coincides with completion of the chemical action. The
latter, itself, therefore, and not the heating of the combustion
products, which is due to it, must be the cause of the luminosity. If
we suppose that the gas-molecules are surrounded by an ether-envelope,
then, in chemical combination of two or several such molecules, there
must occur a changed position of the ether-envelopes. The motion of
ether-particles thus caused may be represented by vibrations, which form
the starting-point of light and heat-waves.
In quite a similar manner we may also, according to Dr. Siemens,
represent the light-phenomenon occurring when an electric current
is sent through gases, which always takes place when the maximum of
polarization belonging to them is exceeded. As the passage of the
current through the gas seems to be always connected with chemical
action, the phenomenon of glow may be explained in the same way as in
flame, by oscillating transposition of the ether envelopes, by which the
passage of electricity is effected. In that case the light of flame may
be called electric light by the same light as the light of the ozone
tube or the Geissler tube, which is mainly to be distinguished from the
former in that it contains a dielectric of an extremely small maximum of
polarization. This correspondence in the causes of luminosity of flame,
and of gases traversed by electric currents, is supported by the
similarity of the flame-phenomena in strength and color of light.
[These researches were lately described by Dr. Werner Siemens to the
Berlin Academy.]
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