MANUALS OF ELEMENTARY SCIENCE, MATTER AND MOTION. BY J. CLERK MAXWELL, M.A., LL.D. Edin., F.R.SS. L. & E.. Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of Experimental PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF TEE LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE; 77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS; AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG & CO. 1876. [All Rights reserved.] PREFACE. Allardice. PHYSICAL SCIENCE, which up to the end of the eighteenth century had been fully occupied in forming a conception of natural phenomena as the result of forces acting between one body and another, has now fairly entered on the next stage of progress-that in which the energy of a material system is conceived as determined by the configuration and motion of that system, and in which the ideas of configuration, motion, and force are generalised to the utmost extent warranted by their physical definitions. To become acquainted with these fundamental ideas, to examine them under all their aspects, and habitually to guide the current of thought along the channels of strict dynamical reasoning, must be the foundation of the training of the student of Physical Science. The following statement of the fundamental doctrines of Matter and Motion is therefore to be regarded as an introduction to the study of Physical Science in general. VII. Relative Position of two Material Particles......... 12 IX. System of Three Particles......................................................................................... X. Addition of Vectors...... XI. Subtraction of one Vector from another XII. Origin of Vectors ........ XIII. Relative Position of Two Systems........ 12 13 13 14 14 15 Three Data for the Comparison of Two Systems.. 15 XIV. XV. On the Idea of Space 17 17 19 XVIII. Absolute Space ..... 20 XIX. Statement of the General Maxim of Physical Science 20 CHAPTER I ON MOTION. XXVII. On the Measurement of Velocity when Variable... 26 XXIX. Properties of the Diagram of Velocities............... XXXI. On Change of Velocity. XXXII. On Acceleration XXXIV. Diagram of Accelerations..................................................................... 24 24 25 25 |