Quotation from: The Strength of the Strong

Written by: Jack London


And Emil Gluck chuckled and went his way. He knew. But how was
the world to know? He had stumbled upon the secret in his old
electroplating shop on Telegraph Avenue in the city of Oakland. It
happened, at that time, that a wireless telegraph station was
established by the Thurston Power Company close to his shop. In a
short time his electroplating vat was put out of order. The vat-
wiring had many bad joints, and, on investigation, Gluck discovered
minute welds at the joints in the wiring. These, by lowering the
resistance, had caused an excessive current to pass through the
solution, "boiling" it and spoiling the work. But what had caused
the welds? was the question in Gluck's mind. His reasoning was
simple. Before the establishment of the wireless station, the vat
had worked well. Not until after the establishment of the wireless
station had the vat been ruined. Therefore the wireless station
had been the cause. But how? He quickly answered the question.
If an electric discharge was capable of operating a coherer across
three thousand miles of ocean, then, certainly, the electric
discharges from the wireless station four hundred feet away could
produce coherer effects on the bad joints in the vat-wiring.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.