Chapter X: How We Communicate with Distant Ships

Our duties in this case are totally different from those of which I have been telling you. While we electrons can do many wonderful things, we cannot march through space. We may be fired off like bullets from the sun to the earth, but that is quite another matter. I shall have something to say about that fact later on. You have seen already that man can make us jump only a very short distance, even when he has cleared our path of the obstructing air, as he does in a vacuum tube.

If men were to provide us with a complete path of metal atoms from the shore to the ship, we could set to work upon the simple plan which I have described in the preceding chapter. But, needless to say, man has more sense than to attempt to keep up metallic connection with a ship going away out to sea.

Even the wisest men were surprised when they heard that we electrons could signal through space to great distances without any connecting wires. We ourselves were not surprised. Had we not been doing this very thing from the foundation of the world? Our fellow-electrons in the sun have never ceased to communicate with those of us upon the earth. Of course I am referring at present to those aether waves which man calls _heat_ and _light_. But the waves which we make to carry man's messages through space are of the very same nature, the only difference being that they are much longer, or, in other words, much farther apart. They do not follow each other so closely, and they do not affect the eye or the sense of touch. However, these long waves are able to bestir some of us electrons who are situated at a great distance from the sending electrons.

Our method of producing such waves in the aether is by surging to and fro from atom to atom in an upright wire. When we make a rapid to-and-fro motion we send out great waves in the aether. The original plan adopted by man was to make us jump across a spark-gap, but in this case also it was our rapid oscillation to and fro that produced the waves. If we wish the waves to carry to a great distance, we must club together in considerable force to supply the necessary energy. The energy which we can get from a battery and induction coil is not sufficient for any very long distances. In such cases we require the aid of a _dynamo_, a machine about which I shall have some experience to relate in another chapter.

In communicating through space, our position is very similar to that of two men shouting to one another over a distance. The one man disturbs the air, thus sending air-waves (sound) over to his friend, and these waves produce certain sensations which he can interpret. I should like you to understand that we electrons are upon a higher plane than atoms of matter. We cause waves in the all-pervading aether, not among clumsy particles of air. After these aether waves have travelled enormous distances they retain sufficient energy to disturb electrons situated at the distant place.

I shall tell you of the first experience I had in this connection. I found myself attached to an atom of _nickel_, a kind of atom which looks to us electrons very much like an iron atom, because it has nearly the same number of electrons composing it, only they are arranged differently. But I was telling you that I found myself on this nickel atom sealed up in a small glass tube. Of course there were myriads of similar atoms all around me, but I did not feel very happy. I was being urged forward, and yet I could not get across from some atoms to others, for the nickel was in the form of loose filings. From past experience I knew that there was a battery along the line somewhere; I could feel the strain. All of a sudden I was startled to find that I could move forward. Exactly what happened, I am not at liberty to tell, but this much I may say, that it was the arrival of some aether waves which altered the condition of things among the filings in the tube.

It has become quite a fashion in America to have motor-cars fitted up for wireless telegraphy. That the electrons play an important part in telegraphing through space is explained fully in Chapter X.]

We had just started out on our march forward when we received such a shaking that we found ourselves in the same isolated positions as at first; we could not get across from one particle to another. More aether waves arrived, we made a fresh start, then came another rude shaking, and so on we went starting and stopping. Indeed, it was the regularity of these long and short marches that gave me the first idea that we were being controlled by some telegraph operator. We were amused to find that the rude shaking, of which I have been telling you, was caused by the action of some of our fellow-electrons. Some of them in their march around an electro-magnet in the receiving instrument caused a little lever to knock against our tube and give us a sudden jolt.

I should like you to notice that the energy with which we moved the telegraph instrument did not come from the distant station. It was a local battery which worked the receiving instrument, but this battery was controlled by the incoming aether waves affecting the tube of filings. There is really no mystery about the matter, but I am anxious not to take credit for anything more wonderful than we have actually accomplished.

We electrons have rendered a very great service to man by enabling him to communicate with his friends who are far out on the ocean, and cut off from all possible chance of material communication. We are willing to serve man on land also, though we very much prefer the ordinary marching arrangement if he will provide a connecting wire. The fact is that we find it very much more difficult to send aether waves over land than we do over water.

I have heard some men ask how many different telegraph instruments may be worked at one place simultaneously without confusion. That is a question for man himself to answer. We electrons are able to produce any variety of waves of different frequency or length; it remains only for man to construct apparatus that will respond only to a definite rate of waves. I hear that man has made considerable progress in tuning the wireless instruments.

Some men are eager to get us to carry messages through space across the great oceans from shore to shore. We shall not refuse, provided man supplies sufficient energy, but I must admit that we electrons prefer the submarine cable. Of course man may put this down to our laziness; we certainly prefer as little severe straining as possible.

I have been telling you of my earliest and only personal experience in connection with space telegraphy. I understand that greatly improved methods have been adopted since that time, but I have never happened to drift in their direction.

CHAPTER XI

HOW WE REPRODUCE SPEECH

_THE SCRIBE'S NOTE ON CHAPTER ELEVEN_

In the first part of this chapter the electron explains the part
it plays in ordinary telephony.

The reader will picture the transmitting instrument at the one
end of the line influencing the receiving instrument at the
distant end.

Towards the end of the chapter the electron turns its attention
to the newer subject of _wireless telephony_, which has been
accomplished now over a distance of several hundred miles.