Physical constant

“ The outstanding irregular part of the aggregate mutual potential energy of the individual molecules, which cannot be included in a function of strain of the element of volume, cannot on that account take part in the transmission of mechanical forces, and is evidenced only in local changes of the physical properties and temperature of the material. ”

“ The product of the superficial tension and the area of the surface, may be regarded as the available energy due to the surface in a system in which the temperature and the potentials , etc.—or the differences of these potentials and the gravitational potential (see page 148) when the system is subject to gravity—are maintained sensibly constant. ”

“ When a fluid mass is in equilibrium under the influence of gravity, and has the same independently variable components throughout, the intrinsic potentials for the several components are constant in any given level, and diminish uniformly as the height increases, the difference of the values of the intrinsic potential for any component at two different levels being equal to the work done by the force of gravity when a unit of matter falls from the higher to the lower level. ”

“ Our knowledge of planetary matter requires the admission of differences in the density, form, and size of ultimate atoms, and, according to the above law, when the atoms are of uniform temperature or motion, the product of the matter of each by its motion, when reduced to the same space, will be constant. The momentum of two different atoms, therefore, we will consider equal, for the sake of illustration ”

“ We may illustrate these relations by supposing the values of and for a mass in which the quantities of the ultimate components are constant to be represented by rectilinear coordinates. Where the proximate composition of such a mass is not determined by and , the value of will not be determined by these variables, and the points representing connected values of and will form a solid. This solid will be bounded in the direction opposite to that in which is measured, by a surface which represents the phases of dissipated energy. ”

“ By means of this relation, the condition of stability may be reduced to the form Let us now suppose that the temperature and all the potentials except one, are to be regarded as constant. This will be the case when one of the homogeneous masses is very large and contains all the components of the system except one, or when both these masses are very large and there is a single substance at the surface of discontinuity which is not a component of either; also when the whole system contains but a single component, and is exposed to a constant temperature at its surface. ”

“ Accordingly a truly natural system of physical units would be one which was based upon the electron, or a multiple of it, as a unit of electric quantity, the velocity of light or fraction of it as a unit of velocity, and the mass of an atom of hydrogen or multiple of it as a unit of mass. ”

“ As a rule, the proper mass is constant, or very nearly so, but it is not always strictly constant. When a body absorbs radiant energy, its proper mass is increased; when it radiates out energy, its proper mass is diminished. When four hydrogen nuclei and two electrons combine to form a helium nucleus, they radiate out energy. ”

“ Every form, whether inorganic or organic, which we can discover within the limits of human search, is composed of atoms, which are capable of assuming, under the influence of certain physical forces, conditions essential to the physical state of that body of which they constitute a part. [1] The known forces, active in pro [Pg 5] ducing these conditions, are modes of motion; gravitation and aggregation, heat, light; and associated with these, actinism or chemical radiation; electricity, under all its conditions, whether static or dynamic ”

“ If they are material bodies—and heat, for example, is the cause of motion—must not the calorific matter move itself—or if it be not self-moving, by what is it moved? If heat is material, and the primary cause of motion, then matter must have an innate power of moving; it can convert itself into active force, or be at once a cause and an effect, which can scarcely be regarded as a logical deduction.
We move a particle of matter, and heat is manifested; the force being continued, light, electricity, and chemical action result ”

“ We know that those atoms obey certain conditions which appear to be dependent upon the influences of motion, gravitation, heat, light, electricity, and chemical force. These powers are only known to us by their effects; we only detect their action by their operations upon matter; and although we regard the several phenomena which we have discovered, as the manifestations of different principles, it is possible they may be but modifications of some one universal power, of which these are but a few of its modes of action. ”

“ Mathematical Theory of Attractive Forces," based on the assumption " that all substances consist of minute spherical atoms of different but constant magnitudes, and of the same intrinsic inertia; and that the dynamical relations and movements of different substances, and of their constituent atoms, are determined by the pressures of the aether against the surfaces of the atoms, together with the reaction of the atoms against such pressure by reason of the constancy of their form and magnitudes. ”

“ By the above mode of reasoning, together with the conclusions drawn from our experience of bodies consisting of an immense number of molecules, the result has been arrived at that the availability of a given amount of energy is determined on a physical basis, and is dependent on the infinite number of particles of which every tangible mass must be composed. ”

“ The laws of thermodynamics, including the fundamental principle that a physical property, called temperature, can be defined, which tends towards uniformity, are thus relations between the properties of types of material bodies that can exist permanently in presence of each other ”

“ A force which belongs to individual atoms, is independent of chemical and physical conditions, and cannot be altered or destroyed by any known means, must be closely related to the fundamental nature of the atoms. One of the most essential parts in our concept of matter is mass, and the force of gravitation of an atom is proportional to its mass. Mass and gravitation stand, therefore, either as co-effects of the same cause or as cause and effect. ”

“ If the conception of a material connecting-link throughout space may be supposed to rest on a perception of physical fitness or necessity in such a transmitter of energy, this gives no physical reason to believe the origin of force resident in the one form of matter rather than in the other. ”

“ It will be convenient to use certain quantities which may be called the potentials of the solvent and of the solutum, the term being thus defined: In any sensibly homogeneous mass, the potential of any independently variable component substance is the differential coefficient of the thermodynamic energy of the mass taken with respect to that component, the entropy and volume of the mass and the quantities of its other components remaining constant. ”

“ On the present view, physical theory divides itself into two regions, but with a wide borderland common to both: the theory of radiation or the kinetic relations of this ultimate medium; and the theory of the forces of matter which deals for the most part with molecular movements so slow that the surrounding rather is at each instant practically in an equilibrium condition, so that the material atoms practically act on each other from a distance with forcives obeying definite laws, derivable from the formula for the energy. ”

“ And we will extend the principle further, and contend that all the phenomena of nature are consequences of the constant tendency of matter to conform to this principle of equilibrium, when suffering temporary derangement from the operation of other laws. That throughout the system of nature, equal spaces possess equal force. That what we call temperature, is nothing more than the motion of equilibrium or atomic momentum of space; or, in other words, that if all space were fluid, and in a state of equilibrium, the product of each atom of equal volume, by its motion would be a constant quality. ”

“ If denotes the potential energy of unit of mass of the substance, we may treat as sensibly constant except within a distance of the bounding surface of the fluid. In the interior of the fluid it has the uniform value . In like manner the density, , is sensibly equal to the constant quantity , which is its value in the interior of the liquid, except within a distance of the bounding surface. ”

“ While the factors of kinetic and of gravitational energy, velocity and momentum, on the one hand, and force and distance, on the other, are simply related to each other, the capacity factors of other forms of energy—surface, in the case of surface-energy; volume, in the case of volume-energy; entropy for heat; electric capacity when electric charges are being conveyed by means of ions; atomic weight, when chemical energy is being gained or lost—all these are simply connected with the fundamental chemical capacity, atomic weight or mass. ”

“ Such a mass, if exposed to constant temperature and pressure, would be in neutral equilibrium. A point in the developable surfaces represents a mass of which the matter is divided between two coexisting phases, which are represented by the extremities of the line in the figure passing through that point. A point in the primitive surface represents of course a homogeneous mass. ”

“ The most plausible suggestion yet made by this school is that a single omnipresent fluid aether fills the universe; that by various motions of the nature of eddies, the qualities of cohesion, elasticity, hardness, weight, mass or other universal properties of matter are given to small portions of the fluid which constitute the chemical atoms; that these, by modifications in their combination, form, and motion, produce all the accidental phenomena of gross matter ; that the primary fluid by other motions, transmits light, radiant heat, magnetism, and gravitation ”

“ If we examine carefully all the conditions of matter which we have made the subject of our studies, we cannot but perceive how gradual is the progress of the involved action of the physical forces, as we advance from the molecule—the mere particle of matter—up to the organic combination. At first we detect only the action of cohesion in forming the rude mass; then we have the influence of the crystallogenic powers giving a remarkable regularity to bodies; we next discover the influences of heat and electrical force in determining condition, and of chemical action as controlled by them. ”

“ This is the fundamental conception (not hypothesis) of the theory.... Now in a system of atoms as above defined, let the centers be of equal mass and at equal distances; there will be no difference of pressure on any one center, no moving force will be developed, and the conditions of equilibrium will be satisfied. ”

“ There are certain absolute entities in nature, such as the constant of gravitation, the velocity of light in free space, and the constants occurring in the expression giving the constitution of the radiation in an enclosure that corresponds to each temperature, which are 'the same for all kinds of matter ”

“ The study of the action of electricity and of ether waves on matter in the form of solids presents many difficulties, owing to the great complexity of atomic and molecular aggregation which characterises the solid state of matter. But the phenomena often met with in theory and practice are, unfortunately, in reference to matter in the solid state. ”

“ Under the term molecular force, we include several agencies,—not alike in the phenomena which they exhibit, but which are all-powerful in producing the general characteristics of bodies. These require a somewhat close examination. All the particles of even a solid mass may be brought under conditions on which they are free to move. By heat we can increase the length and thickness of a bar of iron, or any other metal, and at length produce the fluid state,—a melted metal flows as freely as water in a stream. Fluids, and gases in like manner obey the dispersive influence of caloric. ”

“ In the scientific picture of molecules constituting a physical body, of atoms constituting the molecules, of electrons, protons, etc., constituting the atoms, all separated by spaces far exceeding the size of the elementary particles themselves, we find reflected, in a form comprehensible to the onlooker-consciousness, the fact that matter, even in the solid state, is kept in spatial extension by a field of force relating it to the cosmic periphery. ”

“ And, moreover, chemistry aided by physics has concluded that the properties of a body "are dependent on the variations of the energy of the body, and not on its total value," and therefore that "it is unnecessary, even if it were possible, to form any estimate of the energy of the body in its standard state." ”

“ Let us now seek the complete value of the variation of the energy of a system of heterogeneous fluid masses, in which the influence of gravity and of the surfaces of discontinuity shall be included, and deduce from it the conditions of internal equilibrium for such a system. ”