Chapter VI: Man Pays Us Some Attention

_THE SCRIBE'S NOTE ON CHAPTER SIX_

Men found that by exhausting the air from glass globes or tubes
it was possible to pass electric discharges through them, and in
so doing some very beautiful luminous effects were produced
within the vacuum tubes.

It was when experimenting with one of these tubes that a
scientist suggested that radiant particles were being shot
across the tube.

These particles were really electrons, but it was thought at
that time that they were atoms of matter.

Another scientist declared, from certain mathematical
calculations, that there existed extremely small particles of
something around the atoms of matter, and that it was the motion
of these in the aether which produced _light_.

People were not willing to accept this theory.

Some time later another scientist was able to prove by
experiment that these particles did exist.

This was done by means of the spectroscope, as will be related
by the electron in a later chapter.