Elements of Experimental and Natural Philosophy |
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Popular passages
Page 2 - How charming is divine Philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Page 187 - ... the particles move round their own axes, and separate from each other, penetrating in right lines through space. Temperature may be conceived to depend upon the velocities of the vibrations; increase of capacity on the motion being performed in greater space ; and the diminution of temperature during the conversion of solids into fluids or gases, may be explained on the idea of the loss of vibratory motion, in consequence of the revolution of particles round their axes, at the moment when the...
Page 224 - I did but intend my fancy a little while upon it ; for at first, if I shut my right eye, and looked with my left, the spectrum of the sun did not appear till I intended my fancy upon it ; but by repeating, this appeared every time more easily. And now, in a few hours...
Page 187 - The immediate cause of the phenomena of heat, then, is motion, and the laws of its communication are precisely the same as the laws of the communication of motion.
Page 313 - Columbus for the first time noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had never before been remarked. He perceived about nightfall that the needle, instead of pointing to the north star, varied about half a point, or between five and six degrees, to the north-west, and still more on the following morning.
Page 187 - It seems possible to account for all the phenomena of heat, if it be supposed that in solids the particles are in a constant state of vibratory motion, the particles of the hottest bodies moving with the greatest velocity, and through the greatest space; that in...
Page 224 - I made such an impression on my eye that if I looked upon the clouds, or a book, or any bright object, I saw upon it a round bright spot of light like the sun, and which is still stranger, though I looked upon the sun with my right eye...
Page 289 - To the upright stick was affixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp, except the lower end, which was silk. Where the hempen string terminated, a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on the appearance of a thunder-gust approaching, he went out into the commons, accompanied by his son...
Page 160 - These are generally tuned in perfect unison with each other, or to the same pitch as it is expressed; but when the harp is suspended among trees, or in any situation where the fluctuating breeze may reach it, each string, according to the manner in which it receives the blast, sounds either entire, or breaks into some of the simple divisions just described; the result of which...
Page 224 - And now, in a few hours' time, I had brought my eyes to such a pass, that I could look upon no bright object with either eye but I saw the sun before me, so that I durst neither write nor read ; but to recover the use of my eyes, shut myself up in my chamber made dark, for three days together, and used all means to divert my imagination from the sun. For if I thought upon him, I presently saw his picture, though I was in the dark. But by keeping in the dark, and...