The Rydberg-Schuster Law of Elementary Spectra

Abstract

THE interesting law of connection shown so clearly by Prof. Schuster in the recent pages of NATURE (vol. lv. p. 200, and p. 223), to exist between the primary and secondary series of lines in the representations given by Kayser and Runge of the spectra of certain metallic elements, is a law which seems so suggestive of the musical phenomena termed in acoustics “difference-tones,” as a possible explanation of its origin, that it may perhaps be of some use in seeking for a true account of the connection, to show here how it may be held, if not quite perfectly and exactly, at least up to a certain point of great resemblance, to possess that aspect.