Experimental researches in electricity. Volume III / by Michael Faraday ; reprinted from the Philosophical transactions of 1846-1852. With other electrical papers from the Proceedings of the Royal Institution and Philosophical magazine.
- Michael Faraday
- Date:
- 1855 [i.e 1882?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Experimental researches in electricity. Volume III / by Michael Faraday ; reprinted from the Philosophical transactions of 1846-1852. With other electrical papers from the Proceedings of the Royal Institution and Philosophical magazine. Source: Wellcome Collection.
591/612 page 579
![Feb. 1855.] Time of the electric wave. same wire after the lapse of the same period of time. My statement assumed the discharge of the same quantity at different intensities through the same wire, and the quantities in the illus- trative experiments were measured by a Leyden jar. In the consideration and further development of these results, it must be remembered that it is not the difference either in time, velocity, or tranmission of a continuous current which constitutes the object in view, for that is the same both for an air wire and a subterraneous wire, but it is the difference in the first appearance only of the same current wben wires under these different con- ditions are employed. After the first appearance both wires are alike in power unto the end of tbe current, and then a diflference again appears which is complementary to the first. There are many variations of these experiments which one would wish to make, if possible, and perhaps by degrees the pos- sibility, or else equivalent experiments in other forms, may occur. If the wire employed were changed from a cylinder to a flat ribbon of equal weight, or to several small wires, all being equally coated with gutta percha and submerged, differences would pro- bably arise in the time of delay with the same currrent; and I think that the ribbon, presenting more induction surface than the cylinder would cause more delay; but probably any one of these, or of like varieties, would cause the same delay for currents of different intensities. Again, one can scarcely doubt that with different conducting substances, as iron and copper, the delay would vary, as is the case in the transmission of sound and light. That the delay for currents of high and low intensity should be the same for the same wire in any one of such cases may still be expected, but it would be very interesting to know what would be the fact. The prosecution of these results and the principles concerned in them, through the various forms they may assume by such like variations of the conductors and also of the currents, offers, as Melloni has observed, most extensive and interesting inquiries: even the power of a current to induce a current in neighbouring wires and conductors is involved in the inquiry, and also the phsenomena and principles of magneto-electric induction. Royal Institution, Feb. 7, 1855. '](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21498453_0591.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
