A Rational Investigation of the Principles of Natural Philosophy, Physical and Moral (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. THE PERCUSSION AND RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS. The same mode of computing the mechanic power impressed upon a body, viz. by pressure and space, and the same measure of the power of a body in motion, the quantity of matter and the square of the velocity, Which we have adopted for the solution of the phenomena of the motion of solid bodies, will be found no less applicable to the action and resistance of fluids. We shall first consider fluids as applied to communicate motion to machines; this forming the most simple part of the theory of the motion of fluids. Before the discovery and improvement of the steamengine, water was considered the cheapest, the most powerful, the most manageable, and the steadiest of all the means employed for the turning of machinery. And although the steam-engine has considerably lessened the importance of water, the latter is still always employed wherever a sufficient and regular supply of it, with a suitable fall, can be conveniently had. The application of water to the moving of machines has of course always formed, and continues to form, a very important branch of mechanics. It has commanded a good deal of the attention of our philosophers and mathematicians; but what is remarkable, there still are but few points of the theory with regard to which they are perfectly agreed. It is fortunate, however, that our practical men have found fewer difficulties. By attentive observation, wherever any errors have been committed in practice these have generally been detected and corrected; and they have thus certainly brought the art to very great perfection, and settled upon general rules by which they seldom err to any great extent; whilst our philosophers, in the mean time, have been unable to follow them up and to trace the tr...