Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society: Mathematical and physical sciences, Volume 4

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Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1883 - Science

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Page 96 - ... letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate.
Page 96 - Strada, in one of his prolusions, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such a virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner.
Page 96 - In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that on the lover's dial-plate there should be written, not only the twenty-four letters, but several entire words, which have always a place in passionate epistles— as flames, darts, die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like.
Page 134 - But it is not to be -supposed that this medium is one uniform matter, but composed partly of the main phlegmatic body of ether, partly of other various ethereal spirits, much after the manner that air is compounded of the phlegmatic body of air intermixed with various vapours and exhalations.
Page 97 - I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written not only the fourand-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles; as flames, darts, die, languish, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.
Page 96 - ... at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four and twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate.
Page 18 - ... sets itself promptly across the passage. A fork of pitch 128 may be held near the resonator, but it is better to use a second resonator at a little distance in order to avoid any possible disturbance due to the neighbourhood of the vibrating prongs.
Page 407 - Stability: and a case of equilibrium which approximates to the critical condition will come under § 2 or § 3 according as this curve has its cusp pointing downwards or upwards. Now the radius of curvature of the surface of buoyancy is known by the ordinary theory to be equal to the moment of inertia...
Page 138 - ... in comparison with the masses of the planets. But it is also worth observing that the luminiferous medium is enormously denser than the continuation of the terrestrial atmosphere would be in interplanetary space, if rarified according to Boyle's law always, and if the earth were at rest in a space of constant temperature with an atmosphere of the actual density at its surface*.
Page 134 - And as the earth, so perhaps may the sun imbibe this spirit copiously, to conserve his shining, and keep the planets from receding further from him : and they that will may also suppose that this spirit affords or carries with it thither the solary fuel and material principle of light, and that the vast ethereal spaces between us and the stars are for a sufficient repository for this food of the sun and planets.

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