Technical Theater for Nontechnical

People (Ebook PDF)

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/technical-theater-for-nontechnical-people-ebook-pdf/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Understanding Semiconductors: A Technical Guide for

Non-Technical People (Maker Innovations Series) 1st
Edition Corey Richard

https://ebookmass.com/product/understanding-semiconductors-a-
technical-guide-for-non-technical-people-maker-innovations-
series-1st-edition-corey-richard/

(eTextbook PDF) for Energy Trading & Hedging: A

Nontechnical Guide

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-pdf-for-energy-trading-
hedging-a-nontechnical-guide/

Petroleum Refining in Nontechnical Language 4th Edition

u2013 Ebook PDF Version

https://ebookmass.com/product/petroleum-refining-in-nontechnical-
language-4th-edition-ebook-pdf-version/

(eTextbook PDF) for Practical Strategies for Technical

Communication: A Brief Guide Third Edition

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-pdf-for-practical-
strategies-for-technical-communication-a-brief-guide-third-
edition/
Technical Communication 14th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

https://ebookmass.com/product/technical-communication-14th-
edition-ebook-pdf/

(eTextbook PDF) for The Essentials of Technical

Communication 4th by Elizabeth Tebeaux

https://ebookmass.com/product/etextbook-pdf-for-the-essentials-
of-technical-communication-4th-by-elizabeth-tebeaux/

Theater and Human Flourishing Harvey Young

https://ebookmass.com/product/theater-and-human-flourishing-
harvey-young/

Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial

Market Technicians 3rd Edition, (Ebook PDF)

https://ebookmass.com/product/technical-analysis-the-complete-
resource-for-financial-market-technicians-3rd-edition-ebook-pdf/

Technical Communication Today 6th Edition – Ebook PDF

Version

https://ebookmass.com/product/technical-communication-today-6th-
edition-ebook-pdf-version/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
ascertained to be the case by observation; the observations being
made by Captain Hewett, then employed in a survey of that sea.

Cotidal Lines supply, as I conceive, a good and simple method of

representing the progress and connection of littoral tides. But to draw
cotidal lines across oceans, is a very precarious mode of
representing the facts, except we had much more knowledge on the
subject than we at present possess. In the Phil. Trans. for 1848, I
have resumed the subject of the Tides of the Pacific; and I have
there expressed my opinion, that while the littoral tides are produced
by progressive waves, the oceanic tides are more of the nature of
stationary undulations.

But many points of this kind might be decided, and our knowledge
on this subject might be brought to a condition of completeness, if a
ship or ships were sent expressly to follow the phenomena of the
Tides from point to point, as the observations themselves might
suggest a course. Till this is done, our knowledge cannot be
completed. Detached and casual observations, made aliud agendo,
can never carry us much beyond the point where we at present are.

Double Stars.

Sir John Herschel’s work, referred to in the History (2d Ed.) as

then about to appear, was published in 1847. 57 In this work, besides
a vast amount of valuable observations and reasonings on other
subjects 564 (as Nebulæ, the Magnitude of Stars, and the like), the
orbits of several double stars are computed by the aid of the new
observations. But Sir John Herschel’s conviction on the point in
question, the operation of the Newtonian law of gravitation in the
region of the stars, is expressed perhaps more clearly in another
work which he published in 1849. 58 He there speaks of Double
Stars, and especially of gamma Virginis, the one which has been
most assiduously watched, and has offered phenomena of the
greatest interest. 59 He then finds that the two components of this
star revolve round each other in a period of 182 years; and says that
the elements of the calculated orbit represent the whole series of
recorded observations, comprising an angular movement of nearly
nine-tenths of a complete circuit, both in angle and distance, with a
degree of exactness fully equal to that of observation itself. “No
doubt can therefore,” he adds, “remain as to the prevalence in this
remote system of the Newtonian Law of Gravitation.”
57 Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years
1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope, being the completion
of a Telescopic Survey of the whole Surface of the visible
Heavens commenced in 1825.

58 Outlines of Astronomy.

59 Out. 844.

Yet M. Yvon de Villarceau has endeavored to show 60 that this

conclusion, however probable, is not yet proved. He holds, even for
the Double Stars, which have been most observed, the observations
are only equivalent to seven or eight really distinct data, and that
seven data are not sufficient to determine that an ellipse is described
according to the Newtonian law. Without going into the details of this
reasoning, I may remark, that the more rapid relative angular motion
of the components of a Double Star when they are more near each
other, proves, as is allowed on all hands, that they revolve under the
influence of a mutual attractive force, obeying the Keplerian Law of
Areas. But that, whether this force follows the law of the inverse
square or some other law, can hardly have been rigorously proved
as yet, we may easily conceive, when we recollect the manner in
which that law was proved for the Solar System. It was by means of
an error of eight minutes, observed by Tycho, that Kepler was
enabled, as he justly boasted, to reform the scheme of the Solar
System,—to show, that is, that the planetary orbits are ellipses with
the sun in the focus. Now, the observations of Double Stars cannot
pretend to such accuracy as this; and therefore the Keplerian
theorem cannot, as yet, have been fully demonstrated from those
observations. But when we know 565 that Double Stars are held
together by a central force, to prove that this force follows a different
law from the only law which has hitherto been found to obtain in the
universe, and which obtains between all the known masses of the
universe, would require very clear and distinct evidence, of which
astronomers have as yet seen no trace.
60 Connaissance des Temps, for 1852; published in 1849.
 CHAPTER VI.

Sect. 1. Instruments.—2. Clocks.

I Narepage 473, I have described the manner in which astronomers

able to observe the transit of a star, and other astronomical
phenomena, to the exactness of a tenth of a second of time. The
mode of observation there described implies that the observer at the
moment of observation compares the impressions of the eye and of
the ear. Now it is found that the habit which the observer must form
of doing this operates differently in different observers, so that one
observer notes the same fact as happening a fraction of a second
earlier or later than another observer does; and this in every case.
Thus, using the term equation, as we use it in Astronomy, to express
a correction by which we get regularity from irregularity, there is a
personal equation belonging to this mode of observation, showing
that it is liable to error. Can this error be got rid of?

It is at any rate much diminished by a method of observation

recently introduced into observatories, and first practised in America.
The essential feature of this mode of observation consists in
combining the impression of sight with that of touch, instead of with
that of hearing. The observer at the moment of observation presses
with his finger so as to make a mark on a machine which by its
motion measures time with great accuracy and on a large scale; and
thus small intervals of time are made visible.

A universal, though not a necessary, part of this machinery, as

hitherto adopted, is, that a galvanic circuit has been employed in
conveying the impression from the finger to the part where time is
measured and marked. The facility with which galvanic wires can 566
thus lead the impression by any path to any distance, and increase
its force in any degree, has led to this combination, and almost
identification, of observation by touch with its record by galvanism.

The method having been first used by Mr. Bond at Cambridge, in

North America, has been adopted elsewhere, and especially at
Greenwich, where it is used for all the instruments; and consequently
a collection of galvanic batteries is thus as necessary a part of the
apparatus of the establishment as its graduated circles and arcs.

END OF VOL. I.
 HISTORY
OF THE

I N D U C T I V E S C I E N C E S.

VOLUME II.
 B O O K VIII.

THE SECONDARY MECHANICAL SCIENCES.

HISTORY OF ACOUSTICS.
. . . . . . Go, demand
Of mighty Nature, if ’twas ever meant
That we should pry far off and be unraised,
That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore,
Viewing all objects unremittingly
In disconnexion dead and spiritless;
And still dividing, and dividing still,
Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied
With the perverse attempt, while littleness
May yet become more little; waging thus
An impious warfare ’gainst the very life
Of our own souls. Worsdworth, Excursion.

. . . . . . Ἐσσυμένη δὲ
Ἠερίην ἀψῖδα διεῤῥοίζησε πεδίλῳ
Εἰς δόμον ἉΡΜΟΝIΗΣ παμμητόρος, ὁππόθι νύμφη
Ἴκελον οἶκον ἐναίε τύπῳ τετράζυγι κόσμου
Αὐτοπαγῆ Nonnus. Dionysiac. xli. 275.

Along the skiey arch the goddess trode,

And sought Harmonia’s august abode;
The universal plan, the mystic Four,
Defines the figure of the palace-floor.
Solid and square the ancient fabric stands,
Raised by the labors of unnumbered hands.
B O O K VIII.
 INTRODUCTION.

The Secondary Mechanical Sciences.

I N the sciences of Mechanics and Physical Astronomy, Motion and

Force are the direct and primary objects of our attention. But there
is another class of sciences in which we endeavor to reduce
phenomena, not evidently mechanical, to a known dependence upon
mechanical properties and laws. In the cases to which I refer, the
facts do not present themselves to the senses as modifications of
position and motion, but as secondary qualities, which are found to
be in some way derived from those primary attributes. Also, in these
cases the phenomena are reduced to their mechanical laws and
causes in a secondary manner; namely, by treating them as the
operation of a medium interposed between the object and the organ
of sense. These, then, we may call Secondary Mechanical Sciences.
The sciences of this kind which require our notice are those which
treat of the sensible qualities, Sound, Light, and Heat; that is.
Acoustics, Optics, and Thermotics.

It will be recollected that our object is not by any means to give a

full statement of all the additions which have been successively
made to our knowledge on the subjects under review, or a complete
list of the persons by whom such additions have been made; but to
present a view of the progress of each of those branches of
knowledge as a theoretical science;—to point out the Epochs of the
discovery of those general principles which reduce many facts to one
theory; and to note all that is most characteristic and instructive in
the circumstances and persons which bear upon such Epochs. A
history of any science, written with such objects, will not need to be
long; but it will fail in its purpose altogether, if it do not distinctly
exhibit some well-marked and prominent features. 24

We begin our account of the Secondary Mechanical Sciences with

Acoustics, because the progress towards right theoretical views,
was, in fact, made much earlier in the science of Sound, than in
those of Light and of Heat; and also, because a clear comprehension
of the theory to which we are led in this case, is the best preparation
for the difficulties (by no means inconsiderable) of the reasonings of
theorists on the other subjects.
 CHAPTER I.

Prelude to the Solution of Problems in Acoustics.

I N some measure the true theory of sound was guessed by very

early speculators on the subject; though undoubtedly conceived in
a very vague and wavering manner. That sound is caused by some
motion of the sounding body, and conveyed by some motion of the
air to the ear, is an opinion which we trace to the earliest times of
physical philosophy. We may take Aristotle as the best expounder of
this stage of opinion. In his Treatise On Sound and Hearing, he says,
“Sound takes place when bodies strike the air, not by the air having a
form impressed upon it (σχηματίζομενον), as some think, but by its
being moved in a corresponding manner; (probably he means in a
manner corresponding to the impulse;) the air being contracted, and
expanded, and overtaken, and again struck by the impulses of the
breath and of the strings. For when the breath falls upon and strikes
the air which is next it, the air is carried forwards with an impetus,
and that which is contiguous to the first is carried onwards; so that
the same voice spreads every way as far as the motion of the air
takes place.”

As is the case with all such specimens of ancient physics, different

persons would find in such a statement very different measures of
truth and distinctness. The admirers of antiquity might easily, by
pressing the language closely, and using the light of modern
discovery, detect in this passage an exact account of the production
and propagation of sound: while others might maintain that in
Aristotle’s own mind, there were only vague notions, and verbal
generalizations. This 25 latter opinion is very emphatically expressed
by Bacon. 1 “The collision or thrusting of air, which they will have to
be the cause of sound, neither denotes the form nor the latent
process of sound; but is a term of ignorance and of superficial
contemplation.” Nor can it be justly denied, that an exact and distinct
apprehension of the kind of motion of the air by which sound is
diffused, was beyond the reach of the ancient philosophers, and
made its way into the world long afterwards. It was by no means
easy to reconcile the nature of such motion with obvious
phenomena. For the process is not evident as motion; since, as
Bacon also observes, 2 it does not visibly agitate the flame of a
candle, or a feather, or any light floating substance, by which the
slightest motions of the air are betrayed. Still, the persuasion that
sound is some motion of the air, continued to keep hold of men’s
minds, and acquired additional distinctness. The illustration
employed by Vitruvius, in the following passage, is even now one of
the best we can offer. 3 “Voice is breath, flowing, and made sensible
to the hearing by striking the air. It moves in infinite circumferences
of circles, as when, by throwing a stone into still water, you produce
innumerable circles of waves, increasing from the centre and
spreading outwards, till the boundary of the space, or some obstacle,
prevents their outlines from going further. In the same manner the
voice makes its motion in circles. But in water the circle moves
breadthways upon a level plain; the voice proceeds in breadth, and
also successively ascends in height.”
1 Hist. Son. et Aud. vol. ix. p. 68.

2 Ibid.

3 De Arch. v. 3.
 Both the comparison, and the notice of the difference of the two
cases, prove the architect to have had very clear notions on the
subject; which he further shows by comparing the resonance of the
walls of a building to the disturbance of the outline of the waves of
water when they meet with a boundary, and are thrown back.
“Therefore, as in the outlines of waves in water, so in the voice, if no
obstacle interrupt the foremost, it does not disturb the second and
the following ones, so that all come to the ears of persons, whether
high up or low down, without resonance. But when they strike
against obstacles, the foremost, being thrown back, disturb the lines
of those which follow.” Similar analogies were employed by the
ancients in order to explain the occurrence of Echoes. Aristotle
says, 4 “An Echo takes place, when the air, being as one body in
consequence of the vessel which bounds it, and being prevented
from being thrust forwards, is reflected 26 back like a ball.” Nothing
material was added to such views till modern times.
4 De Animâ, ii. 8.

Thus the first conjectures of those who philosophized concerning

sound, led them to an opinion concerning its causes and laws, which
only required to be distinctly understood, and traced to mechanical
principles, in order to form a genuine science of Acoustics. It was, no
doubt, a work which required a long time and sagacious reasoners,
to supply what was thus wanting; but still, in consequence of this
peculiar circumstance in the early condition of the prevalent doctrine
concerning sound, the history of Acoustics assumes a peculiar form.
Instead of containing, like the history of Astronomy or of Optics, a
series of generalizations, each including and rising above preceding
generalizations; in this case, the highest generalization is in view
from the first; and the object of the philosopher is to determine its
precise meaning and circumstances in each example. Instead of
having a series of inductive Truths, successively dawning on men’s
minds, we have a series of Explanations, in which certain
experimental facts and laws are reconciled, as to their mechanical
principles and their measures, with the general doctrine already in
our possession. Instead of having to travel gradually towards a great
discovery, like Universal Gravitation, or Luminiferous Undulations,
we take our stand upon acknowledged truths, the production and
propagation of sound by the motion of bodies and of air; and we
connect these with other truths, the laws of motion and the known
properties of bodies, as, for instance, their elasticity. Instead of
Epochs of Discovery, we have Solutions of Problems; and to these
we must now proceed.

We must, however, in the first place, notice that these Problems

include other subjects than the mere production and propagation of
sound generally. For such questions as these obviously occur:—
what are the laws and cause of the differences of sounds;—of acute
and grave, loud and low, continued and instantaneous;—and, again,
of the differences of articulate sounds, and of the quality of different
voices and different instruments? The first of these questions, in
particular, the real nature of the difference of acute and grave
sounds, could not help attracting attention; since the difference of
notes in this respect was the foundation of one of the most
remarkable mathematical sciences of antiquity. Accordingly, we find
attempts to explain this difference in the ancient writers on music. In
Ptolemy’s Harmonics, the third Chapter of the first Book is entitled,
“How the 27 acuteness and graveness of notes is produced;” and in
this, after noting generally the difference of sounds, and the causes
of difference (which he states to be the force of the striking body, the
physical constitution of the body struck, and other causes), he
comes to the conclusion, that “the things which produce acuteness in
sounds, are a greater density and a smaller size; the things which
produce graveness, are a greater rarity and a bulkier form.” He
afterwards explains this so as to include a considerable portion of
truth. Thus he says, “That in strings, and in pipes, other things
remaining the same, those which are stopped at the smaller distance
from the bridge give the most acute note; and in pipes, those notes
which come through holes nearest to the mouth-hole are most
acute.” He even attempts a further generalization, and says that the
greater acuteness arises, in fact, from the body being more tense;
and that thus “hardness may counteract the effect of greater density,
as we see that brass produces a more acute sound than lead.” But
this author’s notions of tension, since they were applied so generally
as to include both the tension of a string, and the tension of a piece
of solid brass, must necessarily have been very vague. And he
seems to have been destitute of any knowledge of the precise nature
of the motion or impulse by which sound is produced; and, of course,
still more ignorant of the mechanical principles by which these
motions are explained. The notion of vibrations of the parts of
sounding bodies, does not appear to have been dwelt upon as an
essential circumstance; though in some cases, as in sounding
strings, the fact is very obvious. And the notion of vibrations of the air
does not at all appear in ancient writers, except so far as it may be
conceived to be implied in the comparison of aërial and watery
waves, which we have quoted from Vitruvius. It is however, very
unlikely that, even in the case of water, the motions of the particles
were distinctly conceived, for such conception is far from obvious.

The attempts to apprehend distinctly, and to explain mechanically,

the phenomena of sound, gave rise to a series of Problems, of which
we most now give a brief history. The questions which more
peculiarly constitute the Science of Acoustics, are the questions
concerning those motions or affections of the air by which it is the
medium of hearing. But the motions of sounding bodies have both so
much connexion with those of the medium, and so much
resemblance to them, that we shall include in our survey researches
on that subject also. 28
 CHAPTER II.

Problem of the Vibrations of Strings.

T HAT the continuation of sound depends on a continued minute

and rapid motion, a shaking or trembling, of the parts of the
sounding body, was soon seen. Thus Bacon says, 5 “The duration of
the sound of a bell or a string when struck, which appears to be
prolonged and gradually extinguished, does not proceed from the
first percussion; but the trepidation of the body struck perpetually
generates a new sound. For if that trepidation be prevented, and the
bell or string be stopped, the sound soon dies: as in spinets, as soon
as the spine is let fall so as to touch the string, the sound ceases.” In
the case of a stretched string, it is not difficult to perceive that the
motion is a motion back and forwards across the straight line which
the string occupies when at rest. The further examination of the
quantitative circumstances of this oscillatory motion was an obvious
problem; and especially after oscillations, though of another kind
(those of a pendulous body), had attracted attention, as they had
done in the school of Galileo. Mersenne, one of the promulgators of
Galileo’s philosophy in France, is the first author in whom I find an
examination of the details of this case (Harmonicorum Liber, Paris,
1636). He asserts, 6 that the differences and concords of acute and
grave sounds depend on the rapidity of vibrations, and their ratio;
and he proves this doctrine by a series of experimental comparisons.
Thus he finds 7 that the note of a string is as its length, by taking a
string first twice, and then four times as long as the original string,
other things remaining the same. This, indeed, was known to the
ancients, and was the basis of that numerical indication of the notes