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_THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE_


THE MACHINERY OF THE UNIVERSE

MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS OF
PHYSICAL PHENOMENA


BY
A. E. DOLBEAR, A.B., A.M., M.E., PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, TUFTS COLLEGE, MASS.


PUBLISHED UNDER GENERAL LITERATURE COMMITTEE.


LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.

BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET.

NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.

1897.




PREFACE


For thirty years or more the expressions "Correlation of the Physical
Forces" and "The Conservation of Energy" have been common, yet few
persons have taken the necessary pains to think out clearly what
mechanical changes take place when one form of energy is transformed
into another.

Since Tyndall gave us his book called _Heat as a Mode of Motion_ neither
lecturers nor text-books have attempted to explain how all phenomena are
the necessary outcome of the various forms of motion. In general,
phenomena have been attributed to _forces_--a metaphysical term, which
explains nothing and is merely a stop-gap, and is really not at all
needful in these days, seeing that transformable modes of motion, easily
perceived and understood, may be substituted in all cases for forces.

In December 1895 the author gave a lecture before the Franklin Institute
of Philadelphia, on "Mechanical Conceptions of Electrical Phenomena," in
which he undertook to make clear what happens when electrical phenomena
appear. The publication of this lecture in _The Journal of the Franklin
Institute_ and in _Nature_ brought an urgent request that it should be
enlarged somewhat and published in a form more convenient for the
public. The enlargement consists in the addition of a chapter on the
"_Contrasted Properties of Matter and the Ether_," a chapter containing
something which the author believes to be of philosophical importance in
these days when electricity is so generally described as a phenomenon of
the ether.

A. E. DOLBEAR.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

Ideas of phenomena ancient and modern, metaphysical and
    mechanical--Imponderables--Forces, invented and
    discarded--Explanations--Energy, its factors, Kinetic
    and Potential--Motions, kinds and transformations
    of--Mechanical, molecular, and atomic--Invention of
    Ethers, Faraday's conceptions                            p. 7


CHAPTER II

Properties of Matter and Ether compared--Discontinuity
    _versus_ Continuity--Size of atoms--Astronomical
    distances--Number of atoms in the universe--Ether
    unlimited--Kinds of