Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution, with Abstracts of the Discourses, Volume 2W. Nicol, Printer to the Royal Institution, 1858 |
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action ammonia animal Athenæum attraction basin bell bismuth bodies carbonic acid Chair character charcoal chemical chimpanzee coal colour compound copper decomposition diamagnetic direction distance DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND earth Editors-The Medical Circular effect electricity electrolytic exhibited experiments Faraday feet force Franklin Institute Friday Geological glacier glass gravity gutta-percha heat Heft hydrogen impression inches induction Institute of-Proceedings iron John Journal of Gas-Lighting light locks magnetic mass matter metal miles motion mountain nature NORTHUMBERLAND observed obtained orang organic oxide oxygen particles plates pole portion principle produced Professor proportion quadrumana quantity referred ridge river rocks Royal Institution Silurian SIR CHARLES FELLOWS SIR HENRY HOLLAND Society speaker species square miles strata substance sulphur supposed surface temperature theory tion troglodytes gorilla valley Vice-President WEEKLY EVENING MEETING WILLIAM ROBERT GROVE wire
Popular passages
Page 358 - That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall iuto it.
Page 498 - ... little particle of apparently homogeneous jelly changing itself into a greater variety of forms than the fabled Proteus, laying hold of its food without members, swallowing it without a mouth, digesting it without a stomach, appropriating its nutritious material without absorbent vessels or a circulating system, moving from place to place without muscles, feeling (if it has any power to do so) without nerves, multiplying itself without eggs, and not only this, but in many instances* forming shelly...
Page 11 - ... rendered existent without action or without its equivalent action. The conservation of power is now a thought deeply impressed upon the minds of philosophic men ; and I think that, as a body, they admit that the creation or annihilation of force is equally impossible with the creation or annihilation of matter. But if we conceive the. sun existing alone in space, exerting no force of gravitation exterior to it; and then conceive another sphere in space having like conditions, and that the two...
Page 355 - ... the highest law in physical science which our faculties permit us to perceive, namely, the conservation of force.
Page 355 - ... or all the particles or masses of matter, at every sensible distance, but with a strength varying inversely as the square of the distance. The usual idea of the force implies direct action at a distance; and such a view appears to present little difficulty except to Newton, and a few, including myself, who in that respect may be of like mind with...
Page 11 - ... both are supposed to rise from a previously inert to a powerful state. On their dissociation they, by the assumption, pass into the powerless state again, and this would be equivalent to the annihilation of force. It will be easily understood, that the case of the sun or the earth, or of any one of two or more acting bodies, is reciprocal ; — and also that the variation of attraction, with any degree of approach or separation of the bodies, involves the same result of creation or annihilation...
Page 353 - Agreeing with those who admit the conservation of force to be a principle in physics, as large and sure as that of the indestructibility of matter, or the invariability of gravity, I think that no particular idea of force has a right to unlimited or unqualified acceptance, that does not include assent to it.
Page 358 - For my own part, many considerations urge my mind toward the idea of a cause of gravity, which is not resident in the particles of matter merely, but constantly in them, and all space.
Page 12 - ... (or the earth) before the earth (or the sun) was in presence. In the latter view it appears to me that, consistently with the conservation of force, one of three sub-cases must occur : either the gravitating force of the sun, when directed upon the earth, must be removed in an...
Page 363 - ... be included in all. I might repeat the same observations nearly in regard to magnetism, — whether it be assumed as a fluid, or two fluids or electric currents, — whether the external action be supposed to be action at a distance, or dependent on an external condition and lines of force — still all are intended to admit the conservation of power as a principle to which the phenomena are subject. The principles of physical knowledge are now so far developed as to enable us not merely to define...