Abstract
Two years ago (May 9, 1895) we drew attention to two memoirs by Prof. Righi, who in 1893 succeeded in producing and investigating the behaviour of Hertzian waves only a few centimetres in length. He has now collected the results of these and other researches, which he has made, in the form of a convenient volume, arranged in two parts. The first contains a detailed description of his apparatus, its mode of construction and use, together with the effects which can be produced by it, especially such effects as are easily exhibited by electro-magnetic waves, but only with difficulty by light-waves, on account of the extremely short wave-length of the latter. The second and longer part corresponds more closely to the title of the book, and gives an account of the following phenomena: interference-phenomena with electro-magnetic waves carried out with experimental arrangements which in the main correspond exactly to the well-known optical ones {e.g. FresnePs mirror and the bi-prism); experiments analogous to the interference of light in thin plates; diffraction-experiments; absorption, transparence and opacity; reflection from the surfaces of conductors and dielectrics; experiments in reflection and total reflection which are exact analogues of optical experiments with prisms, lenses and totally reflecting prisms; elliptic and circular polarisation, and double refraction. An appendix contains a series of notes on the theory of electro-optics. The book is well printed and illustrated, and will be welcomed by all who are interested in the development of the work of Maxwell and Hertz.
L'Ottica delle Oscillazioni Elettriche.
By Prof. A. Righi. Pp. vii + 254. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1897.)
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PV. L'Ottica delle Oscillazioni Elettriche. Nature 56, 125 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/056125a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/056125a0