Explanation of the Incomplete Polarization of Mercury Resonance Radiation

and there is again no marked diminution of wave-length with increasing tube length, 8', here. The double amplitudes decrease as shown in figure 8 slowly and retardedly (the first three almost linearly) so as to reach an asymptote somewhat below 2a = 100. This should be a steady fluctuation as the sawtooth shape becomes less abrupt, more smoothly sinuous (like figure 2) beyond one meter of quill-tube length. There is no evidence that the sinuous curve will eventually straighten out. It is again astonishing that these thin tubes (diam. 0.35 cm.) can sustain such prolonged waves for so great a distance, in spite of the viscosity of air. These 2a values, denoting pressures, are proportional to the residual energy values per cm.3 at the nodes.