The perpetual quest for synthesis: How universal laws tame empirical complexity

“ Knit Fabric Construction Knitting is the art of constructing fabric or cloth with knitting needles by an interlocking of loops. The essential 10element of knitting is the loop, for the whole fabric is constructed from a succession of loops.
A loop is a very small length of thread, or yarn, taken at some point at a distance from the end and drawn through, or around, some object, usually another loop. ”

“ Knütten; the root is seen in “knot”) , the art of forming a single thread or strand of yarn into a texture or fabric of a loop structure, by employing needles or wires. “Crochet” work is an analogous art in its simplest form. It consists of forming a single thread into a single chain of loops. All warp knit fabrics are built on this structure. Knitting may be said to be divided into two principles, viz. (1) hand knitting and (2) frame-work knitting (see Hosiery) . ”

“ The chief individual characteristic of purl stitch machines lies in the fact that they have two needle plates, but only one set of needles, and the cams do not act directly on the needles, but act indirectly through what are called jacks. First we will try to get a thorough knowledge of the fabric this machine was primarily designed to make, and the stitch formation required to produce this fabric; then the mechanism and movements of the different parts of the machine will be more readily understood as we proceed with the explanation. ”

“ The writer has made a special effort to explain the formation of this particular stitch, and the reader should make the same effort to get this formation clear in his mind, for this stitch is the base of almost all of the fancy stitches or design work which will be taken up later. The system used in design work is of course entirely different from the one just described, being what might be called a selective system, that is, a method whereby the designer may select the proper needles at the proper time and place to make the tuck stitches block out the design wanted. ”

“ The proposition of the modern kinematist, that the true explanation of the phenomena of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc., consists in their reduction to the elements of matter and motion, differs in little else than its phraseology from the metaphysical theorem that all the "secondary qualities" of the universal substance are mere specifications or derivatives of its "primary qualities." ”

“ Science has become too complex to affirm the existence of universal truths, but it strives for nothing else, and disputes the problem, within its own limits, almost as earnestly as in the twelfth century, when the whole field of human and superhuman activity was shut between these barriers of substance, universals, and particulars. Little has changed except the vocabulary and the method. ”

“ The long, tortuous endeavors that culminated in Dalton's atomic theory, with its kernel, the law of multiple ratios, are the tale of man's attempt to reduce his notion of "matter" to conceptual simplicity; this to the end that it might be rendered an obedient instrument. Freed from contingent accessories, the central problem was this: Given such a vast multiplicity and variety of phenomena as the "substantial" world presents, how can all be grasped under a single, synthetic idea? Plainly, whenever man began to reflect upon nature, he encountered this sphinx. ”

“ Any sort of reaction against the primeval fear with which man contemplates the unknown, is religion. The passionate craving of human beings for a love which changes not nor passes away, is religion.
The desperate longing to find an idea, a principle, a truth, a "cause," for the sake of which we can sacrifice our personal pleasure and our personal selfishness, is religion.
The craving for some unity, some synthesis, some universal meaning in the system of things, is religion. ”

“ Postulating those universal and fundamental laws of scientific inquiry, the indestructibility of matter and force, the changes that have taken place had to be investigated as transformations by which one thing is derived from another, and the present evolved out of the past under that inflexible principle of all scientific inquiry, the law of cause and effect. ”

“ But since the distinction and the interrelation between the rational and the empirical forms the point of departure for the critical system, and this point of departure requires at the same time the moulding and shaping of the empirical by the rational and the rejection of the psychological appearance; a mere parallelism is altogether impossible, but an interrelation is included, and a task set for the effort and labor which constantly makes the rational penetrate the empirical. At the very outset we have the exclusion of the parallelism and the assertion of the interrelation. ”

“ More exactly we may say that the marks by which an empirical is distinguished from a pure science are two. (1) The empirical sciences one and all imply the presence among their premises of empirical propositions, that is, propositions which assert the actual occurrence of some temporal fact, and depend upon the witness of immediate apprehension, either in the form of sense perception or in that of what is commonly called self-consciousness. In the vague language made current by Kant, they involve an appeal to some form of unanalyzed "intuition." ”

“ In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – ”

“ For this conception demands that something, A, should be of such a nature that something else, B, should follow from it necessarily, and according to an absolutely universal law. We may certainly collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found in it. Hence it is evident that to the synthesis of cause and effect belongs a dignity, which is utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis ”

“ Now of all the results of science, none is more universal and more emphatic than this: that there is no arbitrariness in the series of events which constitute our experience; but that a perfect order or uniformity prevails through them all, an order which our intellect can apprehend under the form of cause and effect, or permanent force and necessary phenomena, or, better, a constant persistency of amount both of matter and force in the universe. ”

“ The thread-carrier and the cams are made to revolve together by the turning of the machine handle, or in the case of power machines this motion proceeds from the drive of the frame. The machine may be worked without the dial, using the cylinder needles only for knitting, in which case plain stitch fabric is produced as would be required for a plain hose article. When ribbed work is needed the dial or ribber needles are set in connection with the upright cylinder needles and are made to rotate with the cylinder so that the dial needles share the thread with the cylinder needles. ”

“ If it is a question of the 89fancy stitches, it is required to bring out the features of these with yarns clear in surface and neat in structure so that the eye may follow the intersections of the yarns in the fabric. The silk and artificial silk productions belong to the most highly valued of the ornamental branches of the knitting industry, and these may be utilized to bring out in the clearest effect stitches such as shogged patterns, rib varieties and lace designs where definiteness of stitch and brilliance of colour combine to give results of a high value for elegant garments. ”

“ The march of improvement is eminently shown here, where an old man is patiently knitting a flat web of ten inches with a series of five motions between the rows of stitches, while just by are the circular machines, whose motions are so rapid that the clicks of the needles merge into a whir, and a man is able to attend to six machines, making one hundred and thirty pounds of knitted goods per day. ”

“ The molecular physics greatly in favour some fifty years ago leads to such complex representations and to solutions often so undetermined, that the most courageous are wearied with upholding it and it has fallen into some discredit. It rested on the fundamental principles of mechanics applied to molecular actions; and that was, no doubt, an extension legitimate enough, since mechanics is itself only an experimental science, and its principles, established for the movements of matter taken as a whole, should not be applied outside the domain which belongs to them. ”

“ Very often, in fact, what is called the physics of principles is set in opposition to the hypotheses on the constitution of matter, particularly to atomic theories. I have already said that, abandoning the investigation of the unfathomable mystery of the constitution of the Universe, some physicists think they may find, in certain general principles, sufficient guides to conduct them across the physical world. ”

“ THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY
Dominating not physics alone, but nearly every other science, the principle of the conservation of energy is justly considered as the grandest conquest of contemporary thought. It shows us in a powerful light the most diverse questions; it introduces order into the most varied studies; it leads to a clear and coherent interpretation of phenomena which, without it, appear to have no connexion with each other ”

“ Conservation of Energy is a doctrine to the effect that energy, like matter, is indestructible, and, except by the infinite, can neither be created nor destroyed; that the sum total of all Energy in the world remains constant; that it may manifest itself in different forms, as heat, magnetism, electricity, mechanical motion, vaporization, but that the sum total remains the same.
Nothing could be more satisfactorily proved than this doctrine, and, yet, like Newton's theory of universal gravitation the proof does not amount to a mathematical demonstration. ”

“ The perpetual motion has been the quicksand of mechanicians, as the quadrature of the circle, the trisection of an angle, etc., have been that of geometricians: and as those who pretend to have discovered the solution of the latter problems are in general persons scarcely acquainted with the principles of geometry, those who search for, or imagine they have found, the perpetual motion, are always men to whom the most certain and invariable truths of mechanics are unknown. ”

“ If such reasoners were well convinced that the power of a machine is to be estimated by the excess of motion referred to the perpendicular, without any regard to the apparent center of the machine, and that in machines very little compounded it is possible to produce effects directly contrary to the rule which is true of the simple lever, they would probably renounce many flattering projects, grounded only on the supposition of its universality. ”

“ Now, as a great deal of time and money is spent in those endeavours, I was willing (for the sake of those that try experiments with that view) to show that the principle which most of them go upon is false, and can by no means produce a perpetual motion.
223 They take it for granted that if a weight descending in a wheel at a determined distance from the center, does, in its ascent, approach nearer to it; such a weight in its descent will always preponderate and cause a weight equal to it to rise, provided it comes nearer the center in its rise ”

“ One of the most common fallacies by which the superficial projectors of machines for obtaining a perpetual motion have been deluded, has arisen from imagining that any number of weights ascending by a certain path on one side of the center of motion, and descending on the other at a greater distance, must cause a constant preponderance on the side of the descent ”

“ These things thoroughly considered, it seems very possible and easy for a man to contrive the plummets of a wheel, that they may be always heavier in their fall, than in their ascent; and so, consequently, that they should give a perpetual motion to the wheel itself; since it is impossible for that to remain unmoved as long as one side in it is heavier than the other.
For the performance of this, the weights must be so ordered: 1. That in their descent they may fall from the center, and in their ascent may rise nearer to it. ”

“ It may be demonstrated, indeed, to all those capable of reasoning in a sound manner on those sciences, that a perpetual motion is impossible: for, to be possible, it is necessary that the effect should become alternately the cause, and the cause the effect. It would be necessary, for example, that a weight raised to a certain height by another weight, should in its turn raise the second weight to the height from which it descended. ”

“ If the doctrine of Conservation of Energy be true about which there seems to be no doubt, then all hopes of ever attaining Perpetual Motion must cease, for the idea of Perpetual Motion is predicated and has its foundation upon the creation of energy. The mechanism must give more energy than is imparted to it. It must make energy, and this in the light of the generalized truth of Conservation of Energy is an impossibility. We might as well talk about making substance, and the creation of substance, or the creation of energy either one is not an attribute of man. ”

“ The antiquity of the problem of Perpetual Motion, and the countless attempts by clever and ingenious minds to accomplish its solution, and the uniform failure of such attempts is no proof at all, scientifically speaking, that Perpetual Motion is an impossibility. If there be scientific proof that Perpetual Motion is unattainable, that proof must be found elsewhere than in the number of attempts and the universality of failures, or in the number or eminence of the people who believe it to be impossible. ”

“ It therefore follows axiomatically that Perpetual Motion is possible only if and when a machine be produced that runs absolutely without friction and absolutely without atmospheric resistance, or the resistance of bending of cords, or other like mechanical resistance. If there be such resistance, then the energy imparted to the machine will be diminished by that resistance, with the result that the machine can only yield the amount of energy imparted, less the energy required to overcome such resistance. ”

“ If, however, the principle of Conservation of Energy is a true scientific fact, the impossibility of self-motive power follows as an inevitable scientific corollary, and the ignis fatuus hope of attaining Perpetual Motion which has deluded so many bright minds is forever destroyed and demolished. ”

“ A perusal of the arguments against Perpetual Motion made by thinking men with scientific minds even though long before the thorough establishment of the doctrine of transmutation and Conservation of Energy, discloses the fact that those arguments in fact depend finally on the principle now known and designated Conservation of Energy. ”

“ The most satisfactory confutation of the notion of the possibility of a perpetual motion is derived from the consideration of the properties of the center of gravity; it is only necessary to examine whether it will begin to descend or ascend when the machine moves, or whether it will remain at rest. ”

“ As a consequence, every essential difference between mathematical thought and the science of causes is done away with in favor of a rationalistic construction of the methods of material science. Accordingly, throughout the seventeenth century, the ideal of all scientific method becomes, not the inductive method that founded the new epoch of the science of to-day, but the deductive mathematical method applied to natural scientific research. ”

“ Because we arrive at the concept matter by leaving out of consideration all the properties that differentiate one form of matter from another, and because matter thus divested of its special properties forms a kind of rock-bed of thought, we conclude that similarly undifferentiated matter must form the rock-bed, or, to vary the figure, the original raw material, of the objective universe. ”

“ Certainly we can only bow before an hypothesis which enables us to group in the same synthesis all the discoveries on electric discharges and on radioactive substances, and which leads to a satisfactory theory of optics and of electricity; while by the intermediary of radiating heat it seems likely to embrace shortly the principles of thermodynamics also. Certainly one must admire the power of a creed which penetrates also into the domain of mechanics and furnishes a simple representation of the essential properties of matter ”