Paper, 'On unequal electric conduction-resistance at cathodes' by G [George] Gore

Description

Gore writes: 'During some experiments which I have been making on the unequal resistance to the deposition of a metal upon cathodes of different metals in the same solution by the same current (see “Some New Phenomena of Electrolysis”), I have been led to investigate the resistance of cathodes of different metals to the passage of the current into them. I have found that by taking a good conducting electrolyte, immersing in it a positive sheet of zinc, and a smaller negative one of another metal, connecting the plates with a galvanometer of low resistance, reducing all the other resistances in the circuit to the minimum except that of the negative plate; then making a series of measurements of strengths of current of different couples formed by the zinc and about twelve other metals, during removal of polarisation by stirring the liquid; also making another series of measurements of the electromotive forces of the same couples during stirring; calculating from these data the total resistance in each case, then deducting the portion of resistance due to the galvanometer, also that due to the liquid itself, and to opposing contact-potential, and thermo-electric and voltaic action at the cathode and external junction, very different amounts of resistance, large in some cases, remain, and are exercised by different metals as cathodes, and those differences of resistance are only to a small extent due to heat and current absorbed in liberating hydrogen, and can only in a few cases be partly accounted for by chemical action, films, or absorption of gases at the cathode.'

Annotations in pencil and ink.

Subject: Electricity

Received 30 April 1884. Read 1 May 1884.

A version of this paper was published in volume 37 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On unequal electric conduction-resistance at cathodes'.

Reference number

PP/5/5

Earliest possible date

1884

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

2 pages

Format

Manuscript