Particles are leaping within ordered limits and according
to regular laws as really as the clouds swirl and the air trembles into
song through the throat of a singer. When a wire is made sensitive by
electricity the breath of a child can make it vibrate from end to end,
ensouled with the child's laughter or fancies. Nay, more, and far more
wonderful, the wire will be sensitive to the number of vibrations of a
certain note of music, and no receiver at the other end will gather up
its sensitive tremblings unless it is pitched to the keynote of the
vibrations sent. In this way eight sets of vibrations have been sent
on one wire both ways at the same time, and no set of signals has in
any way interfered with the completeness and audibility of the rest.
Sixteen sets of waltzes were being performed at one and the same time
by the particles of one wire without confusion. Because the air is
transmitting the notes of an organ from the loft to the opposite end of
the church, it is not incapable of bringing the sound of a voice in an
opposite direction to the organist from the other end of the church.
The extreme mobility of steel is seen when the red-hot metal is plunged
into water. Instantly every particle takes a new position, making it a
hundredfold more hard than before it was heated. But these particles
of transferred steel are still mobile.
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