The New Physics and Its Evolution Part 13

CHAPTER VIII

THE CONDUCTIVITY OF GASES AND THE IONS

-- 1. THE CONDUCTIVITY OF GASES

If we were confined to the facts I have set forth above, we might conclude that two cla.s.ses of phenomena are to-day being interpreted with increasing correctness in spite of the few difficulties which have been pointed out. The hypothesis of the molecular const.i.tution of matter enables us to group together one of these cla.s.ses, and the hypothesis of the ether leads us to co-ordinate the other.

But these two cla.s.ses of phenomena cannot be considered independent of each other. Relations evidently exist between matter and the ether, which manifest themselves in many cases accessible to experiment, and the search for these relations appears to be the paramount problem the physicist should set himself. The question has, for a long time, been attacked on various sides, but the recent discoveries in the conductivity of gases, of the radioactive substances, and of the cathode and similar rays, have allowed us of late years to regard it in a new light. Without wishing to set out here in detail facts which for the most part are well known, we will endeavour to group the chief of them round a few essential ideas, and will seek to state precisely the data they afford us for the solution of this grave problem.

It was the study of the conductivity of gases which at the very first furnished the most important information, and allowed us to penetrate more deeply than had till then been possible into the inmost const.i.tution of matter, and thus to, as it were, catch in the act the actions that matter can exercise on the ether, or, reciprocally, those it may receive from it.

It might, perhaps, have been foreseen that such a study would prove remarkably fruitful. The examination of the phenomena of electrolysis had, in fact, led to results of the highest importance on the const.i.tution of liquids, and the gaseous media which presented themselves as particularly simple in all their properties ought, it would seem, to have supplied from the very first a field of investigation easy to work and highly productive.

This, however, was not at all the case. Experimental complications springing up at every step obscured the problem. One generally found one's self in the presence of violent disruptive discharges with a train of accessory phenomena, due, for instance, to the use of metallic electrodes, and made evident by the complex appearance of aigrettes and effluves; or else one had to deal with heated gases difficult to handle, which were confined in receptacles whose walls played a troublesome part and succeeded in veiling the simplicity of the fundamental facts. Notwithstanding, therefore, the efforts of a great number of seekers, no general idea disengaged itself out of a ma.s.s of often contradictory information.

Many physicists, in France particularly, discarded the study of questions which seemed so confused, and it must even be frankly acknowledged that some among them had a really unfounded distrust of certain results which should have been considered proved, but which had the misfortune to be in contradiction with the theories in current use. All the cla.s.sic ideas relating to electrical phenomena led to the consideration that there existed a perfect symmetry between the two electricities, positive and negative. In the pa.s.sing of electricity through gases there is manifested, on the contrary, an evident dissymmetry. The anode and the cathode are immediately distinguished in a tube of rarefied gas by their peculiar appearance; and the conductivity does not appear, under certain conditions, to be the same for the two modes of electrification.

It is not devoid of interest to note that Erman, a German scholar, once very celebrated and now generally forgotten, drew attention as early as 1815 to the unipolar conductivity of a flame. His contemporaries, as may be gathered from the perusal of the treatises on physics of that period, attached great importance to this discovery; but, as it was somewhat inconvenient and did not readily fit in with ordinary studies, it was in due course neglected, then considered as insufficiently established, and finally wholly forgotten.

All these somewhat obscure facts, and some others--such as the different action of ultra-violet radiations on positively and negatively charged bodies--are now, on the contrary, about to be co-ordinated, thanks to the modern ideas on the mechanism of conduction; while these ideas will also allow us to interpret the most striking dissymmetry of all, i.e. that revealed by electrolysis itself, a dissymmetry which certainly can not be denied, but to which sufficient attention has not been given.

It is to a German physicist, Giese, that we owe the first notions on the mechanism of the conductivity of gases, as we now conceive it. In two memoirs published in 1882 and 1889, he plainly arrives at the conception that conduction in gases is not due to their molecules, but to certain fragments of them or to ions. Giese was a forerunner, but his ideas could not triumph so long as there were no means of observing conduction in simple circ.u.mstances. But this means has now been supplied in the discovery of the X rays. Suppose we pa.s.s through some gas at ordinary pressure, such as hydrogen, a pencil of X rays.

The gas, which till then has behaved as a perfect insulator,[29]

suddenly acquires a remarkable conductivity. If into this hydrogen two metallic electrodes in communication with the two poles of a battery are introduced, a current is set up in very special conditions which remind us, when they are checked by experiments, of the mechanism which allows the pa.s.sage of electricity in electrolysis, and which is so well represented to us when we picture to ourselves this pa.s.sage as due to the migration towards the electrodes, under the action of the field, of the two sets of ions produced by the spontaneous division of the molecule within the solution.

[Footnote 29: At least, so long as it is not introduced between the two coatings of a condenser having a difference of potential sufficient to overcome what M. Bouty calls its dielectric cohesion. We leave on one side this phenomenon, regarding which M. Bouty has arrived at extremely important results by a very remarkable series of experiments; but this question rightly belongs to a special study of electrical phenomena which is not yet written.]

Let us therefore recognise with J.J. Thomson and the many physicists who, in his wake, have taken up and developed the idea of Giese, that, under the influence of the X rays, for reasons which will have to be determined later, certain gaseous molecules have become divided into two portions, the one positively and the other negatively electrified, which we will call, by a.n.a.logy with the kindred phenomenon in electrolysis, by the name of ions. If the gas be then placed in an electric field, produced, for instance, by two metallic plates connected with the two poles of a battery respectively, the positive ions will travel towards the plate connected with the negative pole, and the negative ions in the contrary direction. There is thus produced a current due to the transport to the electrodes of the charges which existed on the ions.

If the gas thus ionised be left to itself, in the absence of any electric field, the ions, yielding to their mutual attraction, must finally meet, combine, and reconst.i.tute a neutral molecule, thus returning to their initial condition. The gas in a short while loses the conductivity which it had acquired; or this is, at least, the phenomenon at ordinary temperatures. But if the temperature is raised, the relative speeds of the ions at the moment of impact may be great enough to render it impossible for the recombination to be produced in its entirety, and part of the conductivity will remain.

Every element of volume rendered a conductor therefore furnishes, in an electric field, equal quant.i.ties of positive and negative electricity. If we admit, as mentioned above, that these liberated quant.i.ties are borne by ions each bearing an equal charge, the number of these ions will be proportional to the quant.i.ty of electricity, and instead of speaking of a quant.i.ty of electricity, we could use the equivalent term of number of ions. For the excitement produced by a given pencil of X rays, the number of ions liberated will be fixed.

Thus, from a given volume of gas there can only be extracted an equally determinate quant.i.ty of electricity.

The conductivity produced is not governed by Ohm's law. The intensity is not proportional to the electromotive force, and it increases at first as the electromotive force augments; but it approaches asymptotically to a maximum value which corresponds to the number of ions liberated, and can therefore serve as a measure of the power of the excitement. It is this current which is termed the _current of saturation_.

M. Righi has ably demonstrated that ionised gas does not obey the law of Ohm by an experiment very paradoxical in appearance. He found that, the greater the distance of the two electrode plates from each, the greater may be, within certain limits, the intensity of the current.

The fact is very clearly interpreted by the theory of ionisation, since the greater the length of the gaseous column the greater must be the number of ions liberated.

One of the most striking characteristics of ionised gases is that of discharging electrified conductors. This phenomenon is not produced by the departure of the charge that these conductors may possess, but by the advent of opposite charges brought to them by ions which obey the electrostatic attraction and abandon their own electrification when they come in contact with these conductors.

This mode of regarding the phenomena is extremely convenient and eminently suggestive. It may, no doubt, be thought that the image of the ions is not identical with objective reality, but we are compelled to acknowledge that it represents with absolute faithfulness all the details of the phenomena.

Other facts, moreover, will give to this hypothesis a still greater value; we shall even be able, so to speak, to grasp these ions individually, to count them, and to measure their charge.

-- 2. THE CONDENSATION OF WATER-VAPOUR BY IONS

If the pressure of a vapour--that of water, for instance--in the atmosphere reaches the value of the maximum pressure corresponding to the temperature of the experiment, the elementary theory teaches us that the slightest decrease in temperature will induce a condensation; that small drops will form, and the mist will turn into rain.

In reality, matters do not occur in so simple a manner. A more or less considerable delay may take place, and the vapour will remain supersaturated. We easily discover that this phenomenon is due to the intervention of capillary action. On a drop of liquid a surface-tension takes effect which gives rise to a pressure which becomes greater the smaller the diameter of the drop.

Pressure facilitates evaporation, and on more closely examining this reaction we arrive at the conclusion that vapour can never spontaneously condense itself when liquid drops already formed are not present, unless forces of another nature intervene to diminish the effect of the capillary forces. In the most frequent cases, these forces come from the dust which is always in suspension in the air, or which exists in any recipient. Grains of dust act by reason of their hygrometrical power, and form germs round which drops presently form.

It is possible to make use, as did M. Coulier as early as 1875, of this phenomenon to carry off the germs of condensation, by producing by expansion in a bottle containing a little water a preliminary mist which purifies the air. In subsequent experiments it will be found almost impossible to produce further condensation of vapour.

But these forces may also be of electrical origin. Von Helmholtz long since showed that electricity exercises an influence on the condensation of the vapour of water, and Mr C.T.R. Wilson, with this view, has made truly quant.i.tative experiments. It was rapidly discovered after the apparition of the X rays that gases that have become conductors, that is, ionised gases, also facilitate the condensation of supersaturated water vapour.

We are thus led by a new road to the belief that electrified centres exist in gases, and that each centre draws to itself the neighbouring molecules of water, as an electrified rod of resin does the light bodies around it. There is produced in this manner round each ion an a.s.semblage of molecules of water which const.i.tute a germ capable of causing the formation of a drop of water out of the condensation of excess vapour in the ambient air. As might be expected, the drops are electrified, and take to themselves the charge of the centres round which they are formed; moreover, as many drops are created as there are ions. Thereafter we have only to count these drops to ascertain the number of ions which existed in the gaseous ma.s.s.

To effect this counting, several methods have been used, differing in principle but leading to similar results. It is possible, as Mr C.T.R.

Wilson and Professor J.J. Thomson have done, to estimate, on the one hand, the weight of the mist which is produced in determined conditions, and on the other, the average weight of the drops, according to the formula formerly given by Sir G. Stokes, by deducting their diameter from the speed with which this mist falls; or we can, with Professor Lemme, determine the average radius of the drops by an optical process, viz. by measuring the diameter of the first diffraction ring produced when looking through the mist at a point of light.

We thus get to a very high number. There are, for instance, some twenty million ions per centimetre cube when the rays have produced their maximum effect, but high as this figure is, it is still very small compared with the total number of molecules. All conclusions drawn from kinetic theory lead us to think that in the same s.p.a.ce there must exist, by the side of a molecule divided into two ions, a thousand millions remaining in a neutral state and intact.

Mr C.T.R. Wilson has remarked that the positive and negative ions do not produce condensation with the same facility. The ions of a contrary sign may be almost completely separated by placing the ionised gas in a suitably disposed field. In the neighbourhood of a negative disk there remain hardly any but positive ions, and against a positive disk none but negative; and in effecting a separation of this kind, it will be noticed that condensation by negative ions is easier than by the positive.

It is, consequently, possible to cause condensation on negative centres only, and to study separately the phenomena produced by the two kinds of ions. It can thus be verified that they really bear charges equal in absolute value, and these charges can even be estimated, since we already know the number of drops. This estimate can be made, for example, by comparing the speed of the fall of a mist in fields of different values, or, as did J.J. Thomson, by measuring the total quant.i.ty of electricity liberated throughout the gas.

At the degree of approximation which such experiments imply, we find that the charge of a drop, and consequently the charge borne by an ion, is sensibly 3.4 x 10^{-10} electrostatic or 1.1 x 10^{-20} electromagnetic units. This charge is very near that which the study of the phenomena of ordinary electrolysis leads us to attribute to a univalent atom produced by electrolytic dissociation.

Such a coincidence is evidently very striking; but it will not be the only one, for whatever phenomenon be studied it will always appear that the smallest charge we can conceive as isolated is that mentioned. We are, in fact, in presence of a natural unit, or, if you will, of an atom of electricity.

We must, however, guard against the belief that the gaseous ion is identical with the electrolytic ion. Sensible differences between those are immediately apparent, and still greater ones will be discovered on closer examination.

As M. Perrin has shown, the ionisation produced by the X-rays in no way depends on the chemical composition of the gas; and whether we take a volume of gaseous hydrochloric acid or a mixture of hydrogen and chlorine in the same condition, all the results will be identical: and chemical affinities play no part here.

We can also obtain other information regarding ions: we can ascertain, for instance, their velocities, and also get an idea of their order of magnitude.

By treating the speeds possessed by the liberated charges as components of the known speed of a gaseous current, Mr Zeleny measures the mobilities, that is to say, the speeds acquired by the positive and negative charges in a field equal to the electrostatic unit. He has thus found that these mobilities are different, and that they vary, for example, between 400 and 200 centimetres per second for the two charges in dry gases, the positive being less mobile than the negative ions, which suggests the idea that they are of greater ma.s.s.[30]

[Footnote 30: A full account of these experiments, which were executed at the Cavendish Laboratory, is to be found in _Philosophical Transactions_, A., vol. cxcv. (1901), pp. 193 et seq.--ED.]

M. Langevin, who has made himself the eloquent apostle of the new doctrines in France, and has done much to make them understood and admitted, has personally undertaken experiments a.n.a.logous to those of M. Zeleny, but much more complete. He has studied in a very ingenious manner, not only the mobilities, but also the law of recombination which regulates the spontaneous return of the gas to its normal state.

He has determined experimentally the relation of the number of recombinations to the number of collisions between two ions of contrary sign, by studying the variation produced by a change in the value of the field, in the quant.i.ty of electricity which can be collected in the gas separating two parallel metallic plates, after the pa.s.sage through it for a very short time of the Rontgen rays emitted during one discharge of a Crookes tube. If the image of the ions is indeed conformable to reality, this relation must evidently always be smaller than unity, and must tend towards this value when the mobility of the ions diminishes, that is to say, when the pressure of the gas increases. The results obtained are in perfect accord with this antic.i.p.ation.

On the other hand, M. Langevin has succeeded, by following the displacement of the ions between the parallel plates after the ionisation produced by the radiation, in determining the absolute values of the mobilities with great precision, and has thus clearly placed in evidence the irregularity of the mobilities of the positive and negative ions respectively. Their ma.s.s can be calculated when we know, through experiments of this kind, the speed of the ions in a given field, and on the other hand--as we can now estimate their electric charge--the force which moves them. They evidently progress more slowly the larger they are; and in the viscous medium const.i.tuted by the gas, the displacement is effected at a speed sensibly proportional to the motive power.

At the ordinary temperature these ma.s.ses are relatively considerable, and are greater for the positive than for the negative ions, that is to say, they are about the order of some ten molecules. The ions, therefore, seem to be formed by an agglomeration of neutral molecules maintained round an electrified centre by electrostatic attraction. If the temperature rises, the thermal agitation will become great enough to prevent the molecules from remaining linked to the centre. By measurements effected on the gases of flames, we arrive at very different values of the ma.s.ses from those found for ordinary ions, and above all, very different ones for ions of contrary sign. The negative ions have much more considerable velocities than the positive ones.

The latter also seem to be of the same size as atoms; and the first-named must, consequently, be considered as very much smaller, and probably about a thousand times less.

Thus, for the first time in science, the idea appears that the atom is not the smallest fraction of matter to be considered. Fragments a thousand times smaller may exist which possess, however, a negative charge. These are the electrons, which other considerations will again bring to our notice.

-- 3. HOW IONS ARE PRODUCED