At the end of twenty years, Maxwell's ideas received the confirmation of experiment. Hertz succeeded in producing systems of electric oscillations which reproduce all the properties of light, and only differ from it by the length of their wave; that is to say as violet differs from red. In some measure he made the synthesis of light.
It might be said that Hertz has not demonstrated directly Maxwell's fundamental idea, the action of the current of displacement on the galvanometer. This is true in a sense. What he has shown in sum is that electromagnetic induction is not propagated instantaneously as was supposed; but with the speed of light.
But to suppose there is no current of displacement, and induction is propagated with the speed of light; or to suppose that the currents of displacement produce effects of induction, and that the induction is propagated instantaneously, comes to the same thing.
This can not be seen at the first glance, but it is proved by an analysis of which I must not think of giving even a summary here.
V. Rowland's Experiment.—But as I have said above, there are two kinds of open conduction currents. There are first the currents of discharge of a condenser or of any conductor whatever.
There are also the cases in which electric discharges describe a closed contour, being displaced by conduction in one part of the circuit and by convection in the other part.
For open currents of the first sort, the question might be considered as solved; they were closed by the currents of displacement.
For open currents of the second sort, the solution appeared still more simple. It seemed that if the current were closed, it could only be by the current of convection itself. For that it sufficed to assume that a 'convection current,' that is to say a charged conductor in motion, could act on the galvanometer.
But experimental confirmation was lacking. It appeared difficult in fact to obtain a sufficient intensity even by augmenting as much as possible the charge and the velocity of the conductors. It was Rowland, an extremely skillful experimenter, who first triumphed over these difficulties. A disc received a strong electrostatic charge and a very great speed of rotation. An astatic magnetic system placed beside the disc underwent deviations.
The experiment was made twice by Rowland, once in Berlin, once in Baltimore. It was afterwards repeated by Himstedt. These physicists even announced that they had succeeded in making quantitative measurements.
In fact, for twenty years Rowland's law was admitted without objection by all physicists. Besides everything seemed to confirm it. The spark certainly does produce a magnetic effect. Now does it not seem probable that the discharge by spark is due to particles taken from one of the electrodes and transferred to the other electrode with their charge? Is not the very spectrum of the spark, in which we recognize the lines of the metal of the electrode, a proof of it? The spark would then be a veritable current of convection.
On the other hand, it is also admitted that in an electrolyte the electricity is carried by the ions in motion. The current in an electrolyte would therefore be also a current of convection; now, it acts on the magnetic needle.