5p LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



Imagine a large electric organ, provided with an infinite 

 number of stops, each giving rise to a particular ether note. 

 Imagine the lowest stop producing one vibration in a second. 

 We should then get a gigantic ether wave 186,000 miles long. 

 Let the next stop give rise to two vibrations in a second, and 

 let each succeeding stop produce higher and higher notes. What 

 an infinite number of stops there would be ! Imagine an unseen 

 hand pressing the different stops in rapid succession, producing 

 higher and higher notes. The ether note will thus rise in fre- 

 quency from one vibration in a second, to tens, to hundreds, to 

 thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to millions, to millions of 

 millions. While the ethereal sea in which we are immersed is 

 being thus agitated by these multitudinous waves, we shall 

 remain entirely unaffected, for we possess no organs of perception 

 to respond to these waves. As the ether note rises still higher 

 in pitch, we shall for a brief moment perceive a sensation of 

 warmth. This will be the case when the ether vibration reaches 

 a frequency of several billions of times in a second. As the note 

 rises still higher, our eyes will begin to be affected, a red glimmer 

 of light would be the first to make its appearance. From this 

 point the few colours we see are comprised within a single octave 

 of vibration from 400 to 800 billions in one second. As the 

 frequency of vibration rises still higher, our organs of perception 

 fail us completely ; a great gap in our consciousness obliterates 

 the rest. The brief flash of light is succeeded by unbroken 

 darkness. 



How blind we are ! How circumscribed is our know- 

 ledge ! The little we can see is nothing compared to what 

 actually is ! 



\But things which are dark now will one day be made clear. 

 Knowledge grows little by little, slowly but surely. Many 

 wonderful ,, things have recently been discovered. We have 

 , already caught broken glimpses of invisible lights ; some day, 

 perhaps not very distant, we shall be able to see light-gleams, 

 visible or invisible, merging one into the other, in unbroken 

 sequence. 



