Autobiography of an Electron, The

<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></SPAN>CHAPTER IX</h2> <h2>HOW WE CARRY MAN'S NEWS</h2> <hr class="tb" /> <div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></SPAN></span></div> <h3><i>THE SCRIBE'S NOTE ON CHAPTER NINE</i></h3> <div class="blockquot"><p>The electron explains wherein its method differs from all other methods.</p> <p>It is well known that within recent years the old iron telegraph wires have been replaced by much lighter copper wires; the electron explains the reason for this change.</p> <p>It describes how the electrons manage to work the most widely used form of telegraph instrument, which is called the "Morse," after its inventor.</p> <p>Here we find one of the practical applications of the electro-magnet described in the preceding chapter.</p> </div> <hr class="tb" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></SPAN></span> It is we electrons who have so very far outdistanced all material carriers of news. You must acknowledge that the best runner, the swiftest horse, the fastest express train, and the prize carrier pigeon, are all nowhere when compared with us electrons.</p> <p>But I do not wish to mislead you in any way, and I can speak from personal experience in this case. We do not race off with man's messages in the same sense as these other messengers do. Our swiftness of communication depends upon the simple fact that man provides a whole connecting regiment of us between the two distant places. And when the order to march is given we all move off at practically the same moment. In this way the electrons at the far end of the connecting wire are able to cause signals there immediately. This is the secret of man's success in <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></SPAN></span> being able to hold immediate communication with his distant friends. His success is due entirely to the co-operation of us electrons.</p> <p>My personal experience has been in connection with a very simple telegraphic arrangement. Indeed, the most of our duties in transmitting messages are performed with this particular kind of instrument, known as a "Morse sounder."</p> <p>At the time of which I speak, I had become attached to an atom of iron in the end of a long telegraph wire. From this you will probably guess that my experience was gained some time ago, for man does not use iron wires nowadays in fitting up telegraph lines. He used iron at first, and some of these lines still exist, but when he discovered that a very much lighter copper wire would serve the same purpose, he discarded the heavy iron wires. Man explained the matter by saying that the copper offered less resistance to the electric current, and the majority of people were quite satisfied with this kind of explanation. Of course these are merely convenient phrases which give man no real reason for the difference. The real reason is that we electrons are able to move about <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></SPAN></span> from one copper atom to another with very much greater ease than we can among the iron atoms. That is the reason why man made the change from iron to copper wires, although he had no idea of the reason at the time.</p> <p>To return to my experience in connection with a telegraph instrument, I found that we were being subjected to a series of forced marches. The whole regiment of electrons along the line made a forward move. The line of march ended in a short length of fine wire wound around a piece of soft iron to form an electro-magnet. The end of the wire dipped into the earth, as I have explained in an earlier chapter.</p> <p>Now all that we electrons had to do was to make a forward move, halt, forward again, another halt, and so on. Sometimes the signal to halt was longer in being given than at other times, but we found that this was intentional, and that there were two definite lengths of march. I have explained already how we marching electrons cause an electro-magnet to attract a piece of iron and let it go again as soon as we cease marching. It only remains for me to give you a <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></SPAN></span> general statement of how we work the Morse telegraph.</p> <p>Man has arranged a little lever with an iron end-piece immediately above the electro-magnet, so that the magnet may attract it. Of course you are aware that it is the electrons within the soft-iron core of the electro-magnet who produce the magnetic effect. Every time we electrons in the surrounding wire make a forward move, the electro-magnet pulls down the end of the little lever referred to. As long as we keep marching, so long will the end of the lever remain down, but the moment we halt, the lever is free to be pulled up by a spring attached to it. The movements of the lever indicate the length of our long and short marches, and it is by means of these that man sends signals. All that he does is to control our march, by means of an electric push and a battery at one end of the wire, and it is we who produce the signals at the distant end of the wire. Each time man presses the push we move the distant lever. When we pull the lever down it is so arranged that it makes a sound like "click," and when we let it spring up against a stop it makes another sound not unlike <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></SPAN></span> "clack." Our long and short marches are therefore converted into long and short "click-clacks." Man has made a simple code of signals representing his alphabet, and right merrily do we rap out the signals for which we receive orders at the distant end of the wire, while some one at the other end listens to the sounds we cause to be made.</p> <p>I have told you enough of our duties to let you see how we are able to carry man's news from one part of the earth to any other part. By far the greatest part of our signalling work is done with this simple Morse sounder.</p> <p>It may interest you to note that we can produce those signals far faster than man can read them. When man found this out he took advantage of our powers. He made an automatic transmitter which could manipulate the make-and-break of the battery current far more rapidly than any human fingers could do. Then as we rapped off the signals with lightning speed at the distant end, he attached a little ink-wheel to the end of the moving lever, so that it could mark short and long strokes on a ribbon of paper passing close to it. Although man could not dis<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></SPAN></span>tinguish the signals by his ear he was able to read the record of those we caused to be left upon the paper ribbon.</p> <p>We have been made to work many other forms of telegraph instruments. In some of these we control type-letters, while in others we imitate handwriting, but all these are merely adaptations of our powers of marching. We are proud of our achievements in rapid signalling, which all right-thinking people have not been slow to acknowledge.</p> <hr class="cb" /> <div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></SPAN></span></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />