Mathematical and Physical Papers, Volume 3

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Page 27 - A body is called homogeneous when any two equal, similar parts of it, with corresponding lines parallel and turned towards the same parts, are undistinguishable from one another by any difference in quality. The perfect fulfilment of this condition without any limit as to the smallness of the parts, though conceivable, is not generally regarded as probable for any of the real solids or fluids known to us, however seemingly homogeneous.
Page 149 - Thus, the reduction of the value of the modulus between the melting point of ice and the boiling point of water is...
Page 324 - In the honey-combed solid and liquid mass thus formed, there must be a continual tendency for the liquid, in consequence of its less specific gravity, to work its way up ; whether by masses of solid falling from the roofs of vesicles or tunnels, and causing earthquake shocks, or by the roof breaking quite through when very thin, so as to cause two such hollows to unite, or the liquid of any of them to flow out freely over the outer surface of the earth ; or by gradual subsidence of the solid, owing...
Page 300 - 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 ; and the equation expressing the solution becomes dv VI.
Page 296 - To suppose, as Lyell, adopting the chemical hypothesis, has do net, that the substances, combining together, may be again separated electrolytically by thermo-electric currents, due to the heat generated by their combination, and thus the chemical action and its heat continued in an endless cycle, violates the principles of natural philosophy in exactly the same manner, and to the same degree, as to believe that a clock constructed with a self-winding movement may fulfil the expectations of its ingenious...
Page 123 - 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 341 - Rt of the diurnal term. The cause of the semidiurnal variation of barometric pressure cannot be the gravitational tide-generating influence of the sun, because, if it were, there would be a much larger lunar influence of the same kind, while in reality the lunar barometric tide is insensible or nearly so. It seems therefore certain that the semidiurnal variation of the barometer is due to temperature.
Page 423 - July 12, 1884; and in the following words in the Philosophical Magazine for 1886 second half-year p. 135 : " Water in a round pipe is started from rest and set into a state of steady motion by the sudden and continued application of * See "Stability of Fluid motion," § 28: Philosophical Magazine, August, 1887.
Page 323 - The solid crust would yield so freely to the deforming influence of sun and moon that it would simply carry the waters of the ocean up and down with it, and there would be no sensible rise and fall of water relatively to the land.

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