[Don't think this posted.]
Check out this book:
<http://books.google.com/books?id=isEKAQAAIAAJ&pg>http://books.google.com/books?id=isEKAQAAIAAJ&pg
Start around p. 289. (You can jump to that page by filling in the box
at the top of the screen). This describes Franklin's experiments with
electricity. Bear in mind that he was the first person ever to do
most of this work. He discovered positive and negative electricity,
the conservation of charge, and a bunch of other stuff. The letters
here are like lab notes. This is astounding stuff. You can see why
they made him a fellow of the Royal Society. The experiments on p.
290 were done by J. Canton but they are similar to Franklin's work,
and they make reference to several of Franklin's hypotheses.
I'll bet some modern physicists would be hard pressed to explain some
of these findings in detail, such as:
Experiment VIII:
Having made the Torricellian vacuum about five feet long, after the
manner described in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlvii. p.
370, if the excited tube be brought within a small distance of it, a
light will be seen through more thin half its length; which soon
vanishes, if the tube be not brought nearer; but will appear again,
as that is moved farther off. -- This may be repeated several times,
without exciting the tube afresh.
This experiment may be considered as a kind of ocular demonstration
of the truth of Mr. Franklin's hypothesis; that when the electrical
fluid is condensed on one side of thin glass, it will be repelled
from the other, if it meets with no resistance. According to which,
at the approach of the excited tube, the fire is supposed to be
repelled from the inside of the glass surrounding the vacuum, and to
be carried through the columns of mercury; but as the tube is
withdrawn, the fire is supposed to return.
On p. 292 you see Franklin's experiments performed in Canton's
presence, explained by Franklin:
PREPARATION.
Fix a tassel of fifteen or twenty threads, three inches long, at one
end of a tin prime conductor (mine is about five feet long, and four
inches diameter) supported by silk lines,
Let the threads be a little damp, but not wet.
EXPERIMENT I.
Pass an excited glass tube near the other end of the prime conductor,
so as to give it some sparks, and the threads will diverge.Because
each thread, as well as the prime conductor, has acquired an electric
atmosphere, which repels and is repelled by the atmospheres of the
other threads: if those several atmospheres would readily mix, the
threads might unite and hang in the middle of one atmosphere, common
to them all.
Rub the tube afresh, and approach the prime conductor therewith,
crossways, near that end, but not nigh enough to give sparks ; and
the threads will diverge a little more. Because the atmosphere of the
prime conductor is pressed by the atmosphere of the excited tube, and
driven towards the end where the threads are, by which each thread
acquires more atmosphere.
Withdraw the tube, and they will close as
much. They close as much, and no mere; because the atmosphere of the
glass tube not having mixed with the atmosphere of the prime
conductor, is withdrawn entire, having made no addition to, or
diminution from it
Bring the excited tube under the tuft of threads, and they will close a little.
They close, because the atmosphere of the glass tube repels their
atmosphere, and drives part of them back on the prime conductor.
Withdraw it, and they will diverge as much. For the portion of
atmosphere which they had lost returns to them again.
See how they use words from previously known phenomena such as "fire"
and "fluid"? People seldom invent brand new words for new phenomena.
Franklin and his contemporaries understood that electricity is not a
"fluid" in same sense that liquid or gas condensed matter is, but
they had to call it something, so they went with "fluid." I expect
that in the future if the true nature of cold fusion is discovered,
many of the words we use to describe the phenomena will come to sound
quaint, borrowed, inexact, or downright wrong. If it turns out that
Mills is wrong (which I do not predict or not predict) all this talk
about hydrinos will sound like so much phlogiston.
- Jed
