The
essential property which allows them to be revealed is their action on
a small induction spark, of which they increase the brilliancy; this
phenomenon is visible to the eye and is rendered objective by
photography.
Various other physicists and numbers of physiologists, following the
path opened by M. Blondlot, published during 1903 and 1904 manifold
but often rather hasty memoirs, in which they related the results of
their researches, which do not appear to have been always conducted
with the accuracy desirable. These results were most strange; they
seemed destined to revolutionise whole regions not only of the domain
of physics, but likewise of the biological sciences. Unfortunately the
method of observation was always founded on the variations in
visibility of the spark or of a phosphorescent substance, and it soon
became manifest that these variations were not perceptible to all
eyes.
No foreign experimenter has succeeded in repeating the experiments,
while in France many physicists have failed; and hence the question
has much agitated public opinion.
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