THE MACHINERY OF
THE UNIVERSE
MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS OFPHYSICAL PHENOMENA
A. E. DOLBEAR, A.B., A.M., M.E., Ph.D.
PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, TUFTS COLLEGE, MASS.
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
PREFACE
For thirty years or more the expressions “Correlation of the PhysicalForces” and “The Conservation of Energy” have been common, yet fewpersons have taken the necessary pains to think out clearly whatmechanical changes take place when one form of energy is transformedinto another.
Since Tyndall gave us his book called Heat as a Mode of Motion neitherlecturers nor text-books have attempted to explain how all phenomena arethe necessary outcome of the various forms of motion. In general,phenomena have been attributed to forces—a metaphysical term, whichexplains nothing and is merely a stop-gap, and is really not at allneedful in these days, seeing that transformable modes of motion, easilyperceived and understood, may be substituted in all cases for forces.
In December 1895 the author gave a lecture before the Franklin Instituteof Philadelphia, on “Mechanical Conceptions of Electrical Phenomena,” inwhich he undertook to make clear what happens when electrical phenomenaappear. The publication of this lecture in The Journal of the FranklinInstitute and in Nature brought an urgent request that it should beenlarged somewhat and published in a form more convenient for thepublic. The enlargement consists in the addition of a chapter on the“Contrasted Properties of Matter and the Ether,” a chapter containingsomething which the author believes to be of philosophical importance inthese days when electricity is so generally described as a phenomenon ofthe ether.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Ideas of phenomena ancient and modern, metaphysical andmechanical—Imponderables—Forces, invented anddiscarded—Explanations—Energy, its factors, Kine