§ 8 The Magnetization of Light
This brings us to a point of our inquiries which, though rarely illustrated in lectures, is nevertheless so likely to affect profoundly the future course of scientific thought that I am unwilling to pass it over without reference. I refer to the experiment which Faraday, its discoverer, called the ‘magnetization of light.’ The arrangement for this celebrated experiment is now before you. We have, first, our electric lamp, then a Nicol prism, to polarize the beam emergent from the lamp; then an electro-magnet, then a second Nicol, and finally our screen. At the present moment the prisms are crossed, and the screen is dark. I place from pole to pole of the electro-magnet a cylinder of a peculiar kind of glass, first made by Faraday, and called Faraday’s heavy glass. Through this glass the beam from the polarizer now passes, being intercepted by the Nicol in front. On exciting the magnet light instantly appears upon the screen. By the action of the magnet upon the heavy glass the plane of vibration is caused to rotate, the light being thus enabled to get through the analyzer.
The two classes into which quartz-crystals are divided have been already mentioned. In my hand I hold a compound plate, one half of it taken from a right-handed, and the other from a left-handed crystal. Placing the plate in front of the polarizer, I turn one of the Nicols until the two halves of the plate show a common puce colour. This yields an exceedingly sensitive means of rendering visible the action of a magnet upon light. By turning either the polarizer or the analyzer through the smallest angle, the uniformity of the colour disappears, and the two halves of the quartz show different colours. The magnet produces an effect equivalent to this rotation. The puce-coloured circle is now before you on the screen. (See fig. 44, where N is the nozzle of the lamp, H the first Nicol, Q the biquartz plate, L a lens, M the electro-magnet, with the heavy glass across its perforated poles, and P the second Nicol.) Exciting the magnet, one half of the image becomes suddenly red, the other half green. Interrupting the current, the two colours fade away, and the primitive puce is restored.
The action, moreover, depends upon the polarity of the magnet, or, in other words, on the direction of the current which surrounds the magnet. Reversing the current, the red and green reappear, but they have changed places. The red was formerly to the right, and the green to the left; the green is now to the right, and the red to the left. With the most exquisite ingenuity, Faraday analyzed all those actions and stated their laws. This experiment, however, long remained a scientific curiosity rather than a fruitful germ. That it would bear fruit of the highest importance, Faraday felt profoundly convinced, and present researches are on the way to verify his conviction.