Mathematical and Physical Papers, Volume 3

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Page 240 - A copper ball, 2 centimetres radius, having a thermo-electric junction at its centre, was suspended in the interior of a double-walled tin-plate vessel which had the space between the double sides filled with water at the atmospheric temperature, and the interior coated with lamp-black. The other junction was in metallic contact with the outside of the vessel, and the circuit was completed through the coil of a mirror galvanometer. One junction was thus kept at a nearly constant temperature of about...
Page 297 - The fact that the temperature increases with the depth implies a continual loss of heat from the interior, by conduction outwards through or into the upper crust. Hence, since the upper crust does not become hotter from year to year, there must be a secular loss of heat from the whole earth.
Page 324 - This, of course, it cannot be, because no material is infinitely rigid ; but, composed of rock and possibly of continuous metal in the great depths, may the crust not, as a whole, be stiff enough to practically fulfil the condition of unyieldingness ? No, decidedly it could not; on the contrary, were it of continuous steel and 500 kilometres thick, it would yield very nearly as much as if it were india-rubber to the deforming influences of centrifugal force and of the sun's and moon's attractions.
Page 302 - If, for instance, the case considered is that of a globe, 8000 miles in diameter, of solid rock, the solution will apply with scarcely sensible error for more than 1000 millions of years. For, if the rock be of a certain average quality as to conductivity and specific heat, the value of K, as I have shown in a previous communication to the Royal Society*, will be 400, to unit of length a British foot and unit of time a year...
Page 118 - ... he says, latent heat is evolved or set free. But as this expression relates to an hypothesis depending on the supposition, that the heat of bodies is owing to their containing more or less of a substance called the matter of heat, and as I think Sir Isaac Newton's opinion, that heat consists in the internal motion of the particles of bodies, much the most probable, I chose to use the expression, heat is generated.
Page 125 - I procured two parallelopipedons of ice, * of the temperature of 29°, six inches long, two wide, and two-thirds of an inch thick : they were fastened by wires to two bars of iron.
Page 8 - If we reckon by the amount of pressure, there is probably no limit to the elasticity of bulk in the direction of increase of pressure for any solid or fluid ; but whether continued augmentation produces continued diminution of bulk towards zero without limit, or whether for any or every solid or fluid there is a limit towards which it may be reduced in bulk, but smaller than which, no degree of pressure, however great, can condense it, is a question which cannot be .answered in the present state...
Page 125 - The fusion took place only at the plane of contact of the two pieces of ice, and no bodies were in friction but ice. From this experiment it is evident that ice by friction is converted into water, and according to the supposition its capacity is diminished; but it is a well-known fact, that the capacity of water for heat is much greater than that of ice; and ice must have an absolute quantity of heat added to it, before it can be converted into water. Friction consequently does not diminish the...

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