A new method of spectrophotometry in the visible and ultra­violet and the absorption of light by silver bromide

Abstract

A quantitative investigation of the absorption of light by silver bromide has been undertaken as a preliminary to a photochemical investigation of the action of silver bromide in the photographic dry plate. A good summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods which have been devised by different experimenters for the quantitative investigation of the absorption of light by substances is given by Ewest in a thesis entitled, “Beiträge zur quantitativen Spectralphotographie,” of which an abstract is given by F. F. Renwick. All the methods which have been used previously either depend upon Schwarzschild’s law of the relation between time of exposure and the photographic effect, or a so-called neutral wedge is used which is supposed to absorb equally in all wave-lengths or is calibrated for selective absorption. The method which we have used is in some ways similar to that used by Ewest, but the apparatus required is very much simpler and a wedge of the material under examination is used instead of the neutral wedge of Ewest. In our method all that is required of the photographic plate is that the exposure of two adjacent portions of the same plate to the same light intensity of the same wave-length or the same time gives the same density under identical conditions of development. This condition is easily satisfied. As will be seen in the sequel, errors are reduced to errors in measurements of length.