On the Connection of the Physical Sciences

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Harper & brothers, 1846 - 460 pages
 

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Page 374 - a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.
Page 381 - The squares of the periods of revolution of any two planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.
Page 21 - A singular law obtains among the mean motions and mean longitudes of the first three satellites. It appears from observation that the mean motion of the first satellite, plus twice that of the third, is equal to three times that of the second ; and that the mean longitude of the first satellite, minus three times that of the second, plus twice that of the third, is always equal to two right angles. It is proved by theory, that if these...
Page 407 - Whatever the reflecting surface may be, and however obliquely the light may fall upon it, the angle of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence. Thus...
Page 282 - The spark taken in the same manner from zinc, cadmium, tin, bismuth, and lead, in the melted state, gives similar results ; but the number, position, and colours of the lines vary in each case. The appearances are so different that, by this mode of examination, the metals may be readily distinguished from each other.
Page 349 - Swan, which, after becoming invisible, reappeared, and having undergone many variations in light, vanished after two years, and has never since been seen. In 1572 a star was discovered in Cassiopeia, which rapidly increased in brightness till it even surpassed that of Jupiter ; it then gradually diminished in splendor, and having exhibited all the variety of tints that indicate the changes of combustion, vanished sixteen months after its discovery, without altering its position. It is impossible...
Page 78 - about 30° eastward of the moon, where it is always high water both in the hemisphere where the moon is and in that which is opposite. On the west side of this circle the tide is flowing, on the east it is ebbing, and on every part of the meridian at 90° distant it is low water.
Page 368 - ... of volcanic eruption. It has even been computed, that if a stone were projected from the moon in a vertical line, with an initial velocity of 10,992 feet in a second, — more than four times the velocity of a ball when first discharged from a cannon, — instead of falling back to the moon by the attraction of gravity, it would come within the sphere of the earth's attraction, and revolve about it like a satellite. These bodies, impelled either by the direction of the primitive impulse, or by...
Page 221 - John thence concludes — 1st. That it is the heat of these rays, not their light, which operates the change ; 2ndly. That this heat possesses a peculiar chemical quality which is not possessed by the purely calorific rays outside of the visible spectrum, though far more intense ; and, 3rdly. That the heat radiated from obscurely hot iron, abounds especially in rays analogous to those of the region of the spectrum above indicated.
Page 274 - ... were distinctly visible. Day broke very slowly, and the sun rose of a fiery and threatening aspect. Rain followed. Captain Bonnycastle caused a bucket of this fiery water to be drawn up ; it was one mass of light when stirred by the hand, and not in sparks as usual, but in actual coruscations.

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