Show Light Is Radio Its It's Same Wave but I Big Difference in Size Says Scientist I SCHENECTADY N. N Y March 3 i iNEA NEA Service Light Is merely radio of extremely short wavelength wavelength wave wave- length declares Dr Willis It Whit Whit- ney director of the General Electric research laboratories The radio waves which yOu receive receive re- re n In your set at home arc exactly ex- ex the s same me character as light waves Dr Whitney writes In the American Magazine The only difference Is one of wave length You know that one radio eta eta- tion broadcasts on a wave of meters another on a wave of meters and so on But If a broadcasting broadcasting broad broad- casting station were able to out waves short enough you OU would see them In the form of light coming from your our antenna instead of hearing themAs themAs them As every radio fan knows the length of the wave sent out b by a broadcasting station Is governed to a certain extent b by the length lh of the antenna the shorter the I antenna the shorter the wave TINIEST BROADCASTER The shortest antenna ever used to propagate radio waves was composed corn com posed of two pieces of platinum wire sealed In opposite sides of a glass tube less than a millimeter I about 1 of an Inch You can compare this with the wavelength of light which Is 1 of an Inch for the red waves which are the longest and 1 of an inch for the violet yb- yb let which are the shortest In the spectrum The radio station In the atom which sends sends' out lIght waves Is small Suppose we take a cubic Inch of all air and enlarge enlarge en- en large It until the molecules of which It Is composed are the size of grains of sand How big a beach would these sized sand molecules make We Ve would have one 1000 miles long a mile wide and three feet deep And there are several atoms contained con con- tamed in each molecule OUTCAST ELECTRONS DO IT To sum it all uP light is produced produced pro pro- by a radio wave almost infinitely In- In finitely short propagated from an electron which has been 15 I I I ST 1 S LiS Li'S Li I IN N I DR WILLIS R. R WHITNEY cally kicked away from the nucleus nu- nu nu-I nu cleus of the atom and which sets up the electromagnetic waves waves by Its return to Its place just as the much larger group of electrons forced into a wireless antenna produce produce pro pro- duce the much longer wireless electromagnetic wave Light being a radio wave travels at the same speed as a wave from flom a broadcasting station station sta- sta tion or miles mUes a second Dr Whitney adds A radio or light wave could circle the globe seven and one halt times In a second But a radio or light wave would take three minutes to reach Mars and about one third one seconds see sec to reach the moon Broadcasting to some of the stars of the Milky Way Vay would require as much as years ears to reach Its destination Copyright by NEA |