The Energy System of Matter: A Deduction from Terrestrial Energy Phenomena

Оглавление

James Weir. The Energy System of Matter: A Deduction from Terrestrial Energy Phenomena

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART I. GENERAL STATEMENT

1. Advantages of General View of Natural Operations

2. Separate Mass in Space

3. Advent of Energy—Distortional Effects

4. The Gravitation Field

5. Limits of Rotational Energy. Disruptional Phenomena

6. Passive Function and General Nature of Gravitation Field

7. Limit of Gravitation Transformation

8. Interactions of Two Planetary Bodies—Equilibrium Phenomena

9. Axial Energy—Secondary Processes

10. Mechanism of Energy Return

11. Review of Cosmical System—General Function of Energy

12. Natural Conditions

PART II. PRINCIPLES OF INCEPTION

13. Illustrative Secondary Processes

14. Incepting Energy Influences

15. Cohesion as an Incepting Influence

16. Terrestrial Gravitation as an Incepting Influence

17. The Gravitation Field

18. The Thermal Field

19. The Luminous Field

20. Transformations—Upward Movement of a Mass against Gravity

21. The Simple Pendulum

22. Statical Energy Conditions

23. Transformations of the Moving Pendulum—

24. Transformations of the Moving Pendulum—

25. Stability of Energy Systems

26. The Pendulum as a Conservative System

27. Some Phenomena of Transmission Processes—Transmission of Heat Energy by Solid Material

28. Some Phenomena of Transmission Processes—Transmission by Flexible Band or Cord

29. Some Phenomena of Transmission Processes—Transmission of Energy to Air Masses

30. Energy Machines and Energy Transmission

31. Identification of Forms of Energy

32. Complete Secondary Cyclical Operation

PART III. TERRESTRIAL CONDITIONS

33. Gaseous Expansion

34. Gravitational Equilibrium of Gases

35. Total Energy of Gaseous Substances

36. Comparative Altitudes of Planetary Atmospheres

37. Reactions of Composite Atmosphere

38. Description of Terrestrial Case

39. Relative Physical Conditions of Atmospheric Constituents

40. Transmission of Energy from Aqueous Vapour to Air Masses

41. Terrestrial Energy Return

42. Experimental Analogy and Demonstration of the General Mechanism of Energy Transformation and Return in the Atmospheric Cycle

43. Application of Pendulum Principles

44. Extension of Pendulum Principles to Terrestrial Phenomena

45. Concluding Review of Terrestrial Conditions—Effects of Influx of Energy

Отрывок из книги

The main principles on which the present work is founded were broadly outlined in the author's Terrestrial Energy in 1883, and also in a later paper in 1892.

The views then expressed have since been amply verified by the course of events. In the march of progress, the forward strides of science have been of gigantic proportions. Its triumphs, however, have been in the realm, not of speculation or faith, but of experiment and fact. While, on the one hand, the careful and systematic examination and co-ordination of experimental facts has ever been leading to results of real practical value, on the other, the task of the theorists, in their efforts to explain phenomena on speculative grounds, has become increasingly severe, and the results obtained have been decreasingly satisfactory. Day by day it becomes more evident that not one of the many existing theories is adequate to the explanation of the known phenomena: but, in spite of this obvious fact, attempts are still constantly being made, even by most eminent men, to rule the results of experimental science into line with this or that accepted theory. The contradictions are many and glaring, but speculative methods are still rampant. They have become the fashion, or rather the fetish, of modern science. It would seem that no experimental result can be of any value until it is deductively accommodated to some preconceived hypothesis, until it is embodied and under the sway of what is practically scientific dogma. These methods have permeated all branches of science more or less, but in no sphere has the tendency to indulge in speculation been more pronounced than in that which deals with energetics. In no sphere, also, have the consequences of such indulgence been more disastrous. For the most part, the current conceptions of energy processes are crude, fanciful, and inconsistent with Nature. They require for their support—in fact, for their very existence—the acceptance of equally fantastic conceptions of mythical substances or ethereal media of whose real existence there is absolutely no experimental evidence. On the assumed properties or motions of such media are based the many inconsistent and useless attempts to explain phenomena. But, as already pointed out, Nature has unmistakably indicated the true path of progress to be that of experimental investigation. In the use of this method only phenomena can be employed, and any hypothesis which may be formulated as the result of research on these lines is of scientific value only in so far as it is the correct expression of the actual facts observed. By this method of holding close to Nature reliable working hypotheses can, if necessary, be formed, and real progress made. It is undeniably the method of true science.

.....

From the phenomena described above, it will be observed that, in the energy processes of transformation occurring in both primary and planet, the function of the gravitation field or influence is entirely passive in nature. The field is, in truth, the persistent moving or directing power behind the energy processes, the incepting energy influence or agency which determines the nature of the transformation in each case without being, in any way, actively engaged in it. In accelerating or retarding the transformation process it has thus absolutely no effect. These features are controlled by other factors. Neither does this incepting agency affect, in any way, the limits of the transformation process, these limits being prescribed by the physical or energy qualities of the acting materials. In general nature the gravitation field appears to be simply an energy influence—a peculiar manifestation of certain passive qualities of energy. This aspect will, however, become clearer to the reader when the properties of gravitation are studied in conjunction with those of other incepting energy influences (§§ 17, 18, 19).

In the case of a planetary body, there is a real limit to the extent of the transformation of its orbital energy of motion under the influence of the gravitation field. As the orbit of the planet widens, and its mean distance from the primary becomes greater, its velocity in its orbital path must correspondingly decrease. As already pointed out (§ 5), this decrease is simply the result of the orbital energy of motion being transformed or worked down into energy of position. But since this orbital energy is strictly limited in amount, a point must ultimately be reached where it would be transformed in its entirety into energy of position. When this limiting condition is attained, the planet clearly could have no orbital motion; it would be instantaneously at rest in somewhat the same way as a projectile from the earth's surface is at rest at the summit of its flight in virtue of the complete transformation of its energy of motion into energy of position. In this limiting condition, also, the energy of position of the planet would be the maximum possible, and its orbital energy zero. The scope of the planetary orbital path is thus rigidly determined by the planetary energy properties. Assuming the reduction of gravity with distance to follow the usual law of inverse squares, the value of the displacement of the planet from the central axis when in this stationary or limiting position may be readily calculated if the various constants are known. In any given case it is obvious that this limiting displacement must be a finite quantity, since the planetary orbital energy which is being worked down is itself finite in amount.

.....