Abstract
PROF. LOREHZ has given in Wied. Ann., No. 9, a development of his theory of “refraction-constants” (published before in Danish), and described experiments bearing on it. The problem contemplated was to find that function of the refractive index, freed from dispersion, and of the density of a body, which is constant with varying density of the body, supposing the molecules themselves unchanged. It is assumed that bodies consist of molecules in whose intervals light is propagated with the same velocity as in vacuous space; further, that the bodies are isotropic, and their molecules of spherical form. Herr Lorenz arrives at a simple expression for the refraction-constant, the constancy of which, as also the correctness of the assumption as to light moving with the same velocity in the intervals of molecules as in vacuo, had to be proved. He determined the refraction constants of several bodies in the liquid and the vaporous states, viz., ethylic ether, ethylic alcohol, water, chloroform, ethylic iodide, ethylic acetate, and sulphide of carbon. The refraction was determined with sodium and lithium light, and at temperatures of 10°, 20°, and 100°. He found that in passage of the substances from the liquid to the vaporous state the refraction-constant varies very little (only about 5 per cent, at most). Dispersion also showed great constancy. Another Danish physicist, K. Prytz, has extended the inquiry to some ten other substances (loc. cit.), and confirmed the assumption of refraction constants.
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Physical Notes . Nature 23, 43–44 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023043b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023043b0