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DIVISION I.

PRELIMINARY.

CHAPTER I.-KINEMATICS.

1. THE Science which investigates the action of Force is called, by the most logical writers, DYNAMICS. It is commonly, but erroneously, called MECHANICS; a term employed by Newton in its true sense, the Science of Machines, and the art of making them.

2. Force is recognized as acting in two ways:

1o so as to compel rest or to prevent change of motion, and 2o so as to produce or to change motion.

Dynamics, therefore, is divided into two parts, which are conveniently called STATICS and KINETICS.

3. In Statics the action of force in maintaining rest, or preventing change of motion, the 'balancing of forces,' or Equilibrium, is investigated; in Kinetics, the action of force in producing or in changing motion.

4. In Kinetics it is not mere motion which is investigated, but the relation of forces to motion. The circumstances of mere motion, considered without reference to the bodies moved, or to the forces producing the motion, or to the forces called into action by the motion, constitute the subject of a branch of Pure Mathematics, which is called KINEMATICS, or, in its more practical branches, MECHANISM.

5. Observation and experiment have afforded us the means of translating, as it were, from Kinematics into Dynamics, and vice versa. This is merely mentioned now in order to show the necessity for, and the value of, the preliminary matter we are about to introduce.

6. Thus it appears that there are many properties of motion, displacement, and deformation, which may be considered altogether independently of force, mass, chemical constitution, elasticity, temperature, magnetism, electricity; and that the preliminary consideration. of such properties in the abstract is of very great use for Natural

Philosophy. We devote to it, accordingly, the whole of this chapter; which will form, as it were, the Geometry of the subject, embracing what can be observed or concluded with regard to actual motions, as long as the cause is not sought. In this category we shall first take up the free motion of a point, then the motion of a point attached to an inextensible cord, then the motions and displacements of rigid systems and finally, the deformations of solid and fluid masses.

7. When a point moves from one position to another it must evidently describe a continuous line, which may be curved or straight, or even made up of portions of curved and straight lines meeting each other at any angles. If the motion be that of a material particle, however, there can be no abrupt change of velocity, nor of direction unless where the velocity is zero, since (as we shall afterwards see) such would imply the action of an infinite force. It is useful to consider at the outset various theorems connected with the geometrical notion of the path described by a moving point; and these we shall now take up, deferring the consideration of Velocity to a future section, as being more closely connected with physical ideas.

8. The direction of motion of a moving point is at each instant the tangent drawn to its path, if the path be a curve; or the path itself if a straight line. This is evident from the definition of the tangent to a curve.

9. If the path be not straight the direction of motion changes from point to point, and the rate of this change, per unit of length of the curve, is called the Curvature. To exemplify this, suppose

P

two tangents, PT, QU, drawn to a circle, and radii OP, OQ, to the points of contact. The angle between the tangents is the change of direction between P and Q, and the rate of change is to be measured by the relation between this angle and the length of the circular arc PQ. Now, if 0 be the angle, s the arc, and r the radius, we see at once that (as the angle between the radii is equal to the angle between the tangents, and as the measure of an angle is the Ө I

ratio of the arc to the radius, § 54) r0=s, and therefore is the

S r

measure of the curvature. Hence the curvature of a circle is inversely as its radius, and is measured, in terms of the proper unit of curvature, simply by the reciprocal of the radius.

10. Any small portion of a curve may be approximately taken as a circular arc, the approximation being closer and closer to the truth, as the assumed arc is smaller. The curvature at any point is the reciprocal of the radius of this circle for a small arc on each side of the point.

11. If all the points of the curve lie in one plane, it is called a plane curve, and if it be made up of portions of straight or curved lines it

is called a plane polygon. If the line do not lie in one plane, we have in one case what is called a curve of double curvature, in the other a gauche polygon. The term 'curve of double curvature' is a very bad one, and, though in very general use, is, we hope, not ineradicable. The fact is, that there are not two curvatures, but only a curvature (as above defined) of which the plane is continuously changing, or twisting, round the tangent line. The course of such a curve is, in common language, well called 'tortuous;' and the measure of the corresponding property is conveniently called Tortuosity.

12. The nature of this will be best understood by considering the curve as a polygon whose sides are indefinitely small. Any two consecutive sides, of course, lie in a plane-and in that plane the curvature is measured as above; but in a curve which is not plane the third side of the polygon will not be in the same plane with the first two, and therefore the new plane in which the curvature is to be measured is different from the old one. The plane of the curvature on each side of any point of a tortuous curve is sometimes called the Osculating Plane of the curve at that point. As two successive positions of it contain the second side of the polygon above mentioned, it is evident that the osculating plane passes from one position to the next by revolving about the tangent to the curve.

13. Thus, as we proceed along such a curve, the curvature in general varies; and, at the same time, the plane in which the curvature lies is turning about the tangent to the curve. The rate of torsion, or the tortuosity, is therefore to be measured by the rate at which the osculating plane turns about the tangent, per unit length of the curve. The simplest illustration of a tortuous curve is the thread of a screw. Compare § 41 (d).

14. The Integral Curvature, or whole change of direction, of an arc of a plane curve, is the angle through which the tangent has turned as we pass from one extremity to the other. The average curvature of any portion is its whole curvature divided by its length. Suppose a line, drawn through any fixed point, to turn so as always to be parallel to the direction of motion of a point describing the curve : the angle through which this turns during the motion of the point exhibits what we have defined as the integral curvature. In estimating this, we must of course take the enlarged modern meaning of an angle, including angles greater than two right angles, and also negative angles. Thus the integral curvature of any closed curve or broken line, whether everywhere concave to the interior or not, is four right angles, provided it does not cut itself. That of a Lemniscate, 8, is zero. That of the Epicyloid

so on.

is eight right angles; and

15. The definition in last section may evidently be extended to a plane polygon, and the integral change of direction, or the angle between the first and last sides, is then the sum of its exterior angles, all the sides being produced each in the direction in which the

moving point describes it while passing round the figure. This is true whether the polygon be closed or not. If closed, then, as long as it is not crossed, this sum is four right angles,—an extension of the result in Euclid, where all reëntrant polygons are excluded. In the star-shaped figure, it is ten right angles, wanting the sum of the five acute angles of the figure; i. e. it is eight right angles.

16. A chain, cord, or fine wire, or a fine fibre, filament, or hair, may suggest, what is not to be found among natural or artificial productions, a perfectly flexible and inextensible line. The elementary kinematics of this subject require no investigation. The mathematical condition to be expressed in any case of it is simply that the distance measured along the line from any one point to any other, remains constant, however the line be bent.

17. The use of a cord in mechanism presents us with many practical applications of this theory, which are in general extremely simple; although curious, and not always very easy, geometrical problems occur in connexion with it. We shall say nothing here about such cases as knots, knitting, weaving, etc., as being excessively difficult in their general development, and too simple in the ordinary cases to require explanation.

18. The simplest and most useful applications are to the Pulley and its combinations. In theory a pulley is simply a smooth body

which changes the direction of a flexible and inextensible cord stretched across part of its surface; in practice (to escape as much as possible of the inevitable friction) it is a wheel, on part of whose circumference the cord is wrapped.

(1) Suppose we have a single pulley B, about which the flexible and inextensible cord ABP is wrapped, and P suppose its free portions to be parallel.

B

If (A being fixed) a point P of the cord
be moved to P', it is evident that each
of the portions AB and PB will be
shortened by one-half of PP'. Hence,
when P moves through any space in
the direction of the cord, the pulley B
moves in the same direction, through
half the space.

(2) If there be two cords and two pulleys, the ends AA' being fixed, and the other end of AB being attached to the pulley B'-then, if all free parts of the cord are parallel, when P is moved to P', B' moves in the same direction through half the space, and carries with it one end of the cord AB. Hence B moves through half the space B did, that is, one fourth of PP'.

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