On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other

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Faraday Michael. On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other

PREFACE

LECTURE I. THE FORCE OF GRAVITATION

LECTURE II. GRAVITATION – COHESION

LECTURE III. COHESION – CHEMICAL AFFINITY

LECTURE IV. CHEMICAL AFFINITY – HEAT

LECTURE V. MAGNETISM – ELECTRICITY

LECTURE VI. THE CORRELATION OF THE PHYSICAL FORCES

LECTURE ON LIGHT-HOUSE ILLUMINATION – THE ELECTRIC LIGHT

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It grieves me much to think that I may have been a cause of disturbance in your Christmas arrangements1, for nothing is more satisfactory to my mind than to perform what I undertake; but such things are not always left in our own power, and we must submit to circumstances as they are appointed. I will to-day do my best, and will ask you to bear with me if I am unable to give more than a few words; and as a substitute, I will endeavour to make the illustrations of the sense I try to express as full as possible; and if we find by the end of this lecture that we may be justified in continuing them, thinking that next week our power shall be greater, – why, then, with submission to you, we will take such course as you may think fit, – either to go on, or discontinue them; and although I now feel much weakened by the pressure of illness (a mere cold) upon me, both in facility of expression and clearness of thought, I shall here claim, as I always have done on these occasions, the right of addressing myself to the younger members of the audience. And for this purpose, therefore, unfitted as it may seem for an elderly infirm man to do so, I will return to second childhood and become, as it were, young again amongst the young.

Let us now consider, for a little while, how wonderfully we stand upon this world. Here it is we are born, bred, and live, and yet we view these things with an almost entire absence of wonder to ourselves respecting the way in which all this happens. So small, indeed, is our wonder, that we are never taken by surprise; and I do think that, to a young person of ten, fifteen, or twenty years of age, perhaps the first sight of a cataract or a mountain would occasion him more surprise than he had ever felt concerning the means of his own existence, – how he came here; how he lives; by what means he stands upright; and through what means he moves about from place to place. Hence, we come into this world, we live, and depart from it, without our thoughts being called specifically to consider how all this takes place; and were it not for the exertions of some few inquiring minds, who have looked into these things and ascertained the very beautiful laws and conditions by which we do live and stand upon the earth, we should hardly be aware that there was anything wonderful in it. These inquiries, which have occupied philosophers from the earliest days, when they first began to find out the laws by which we grow, and exist, and enjoy ourselves, up to the present time, have shewn us that all this was effected in consequence of the existence of certain forces, or abilities to do things, or powers, that are so common that nothing can be more so; for nothing is commoner than the wonderful powers by which we are enabled to stand upright – they are essential to our existence every moment.

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There is another point I want in the next place to draw your attention to. I have here a quantity of shot; each of these falls separately, and each has its own gravitating power, as you perceive when I let them fall loosely on a sheet of paper. If I put them into a bottle, I collect them together as one mass; and philosophers have discovered that there is a certain point in the middle of the whole collection of shots that may be considered as the one point in which all their gravitating power is centred, and that point they call the centre of gravity: it is not at all a bad name, and rather a short one – the centre of gravity. Now suppose I take a sheet of pasteboard, or any other thing easily dealt with, and run a bradawl through it at one corner A (fig. 3), and Mr. Anderson hold that up in his hand before us, and I then take a piece of thread and an ivory ball, and hang that upon the awl – then the centre of gravity of both the pasteboard and the ball and string are as near as they can get to the centre of the earth; that is to say, the whole of the attracting power of the earth is, as it were, centred in a single point of the cardboard – and this point is exactly below the point of suspension. All I have to do, therefore, is to draw a line, A B, corresponding with the string, and we shall find that the centre of gravity is somewhere in that line. But where? To find that out, all we have to do is to take another place for the awl (fig. 4), hang the plumb-line, and make the same experiment, and there [at the point C] is the centre of gravity – there where the two lines which I have traced cross each other; and if I take that pasteboard, and make a hole with the bradawl through it at that point, you will see that it will be supported in any position in which it may be placed. Now, knowing that, what do I do when I try to stand upon one leg? Do you not see that I push myself over to the left side, and quietly take up the right leg, and thus bring some central point in my body over this left leg. What is that point which I throw over? You will know at once that it is the centre of gravity– that point in me where the whole gravitating force of my body is centred, and which I thus bring in a line over my foot.

Fig. 5. and Fig. 6.

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