Power (physics)

“ You may consider these then as separate particles magnified, so as to be evident to your sight; they are loose from each other—they all gravitate—they all fall to the earth—for the force of gravitation never fails. Now, I have here a centre of power which I will not name at present, and when these particles are placed upon it, see what an attraction they have for each other. ”

“ In fine, do not the varying powers calculated to produce the phenomena, consist of the varying qualities of bodies, and the varying circumstances in which they are placed in regard to each other; and may not the active power be fixed and always the same? Does not this conclusion best accord with the simplicity of nature? Is it probable that two active powers could be co-existent? May not the elasticity of a universal medium account for most of the intricate phenomena of bodies? May not motion grow out of the vacuum between the atoms of that universal medium? ”

“ Material Science has held that the Universe is composed of two principles, (1) Matter; (2) Energy or Force. Some hold that these two principles really are aspects of the same thing, and that there is really but one Principle, one aspect of which is shape, form, etc., and called Matter; the other a quality manifesting in Motion, which quality is called Force. Others, the most radical, hold that there is nothing but Matter, and that Force and Energy is but a "quality," or "power," inherent in Matter. Others hold that Force is the "real thing" and Matter but a form of Force. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the various forms of energy are thus reducible to unity; they are one force transformed by mechanical arrangements. "Electricity and magnetism, heat and light, muscular energy and chemical action, motion and mechanical work, are only different forms of one and the same power.... Moreover, chemical union of the elements of matter, the attraction of gravitation in all the bodies of the universe, are but varied forms of this universal motive force." ”

“ For example, in198 the theory of gravitation we suppose an agent,—viz. force, or mechanical power,—to act on any material body which is placed in the presence of any other, and to urge the two mutually towards each other. This is a vera causa; for heavy bodies (that is, all bodies, but some more, some less,) tend to, or endeavour to reach, the earth, and require the exertion of force to counteract this endeavour, or to keep them up. Now, that which opposes and neutralizes force is force. ”

“ Büchner. Physics, as I stated to you on another occasion, “makes us acquainted with eight different forces—gravitation, mechanical force, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, affinity, cohesion, which, inseparably united to matter, form and give shape to the world. These [pg 643] forces are, with few exceptions, mutually convertible, so that nothing is lost in the process of conversion” (p. 18) . ”

“ In the Newtonian language of elementary physics, force is recognised by its action in producing or in changing motion, or in preventing change of motion or in maintaining rest. When we deal with matter in the concrete, force does not, strictly speaking, enter into the question, for force, unlike matter, has no independent objective existence. It is energy in its various forms, known or unknown, that acts upon matter. ”

“ How are we to conceive of this force growing up in A to a million-fold or more ? And if the surrounding particles be then removed, of its diminution in an equal degree? Or how are we to look upon the power raised up in all these outer x^articles by the action of A on them, or by their action one on another, without admitting (according to the limited definition of gravitation) the facile generation and annihilation of force ? ”

“ ENERGY we use as an all-inclusive term applied to spiritual, mindal, and material realms. Force is also thus broadly used. Power is ordinarily limited to the designation of the electronic level of material or linear-gravity-responsive matter in the grand universe. Power is also employed to designate sovereignty. We cannot follow your generally accepted definitions of force, energy, and power. There is such paucity of language that we must assign multiple meanings to these terms.
Physical energy is a term denoting all phases and forms of phenomenal motion, action, and potential. ”

“ Now, that power which caused the water to descend in the balance—which made the iron weight press upon and flatten the bubble of air—which caused the swinging to and fro of the pendulum, that power is entirely due to the attraction which there is between the falling body and the earth. Let us be slow and careful to comprehend this. It is not that the earth has any particular attraction towards bodies which fall to it, but, that all these bodies possess an attraction, every one towards the other. ”

“ We have learned that force is one, indestructible and uncreatable, and that all its manifestations are mutually convertible one into another. Either of the great modes of force may be active in affecting chemical composition; may cause chemical union or chemical separation; may be the motive of either analysis or synthesis. Now, in the direction here suggested, the main work of physics is being done. The chief object of the physicist to-day is to determine quantitatively the relations connecting all the different varieties of energy. Under what circumstances, and how, are forces transformed? ”

“ Let us come back to Earth, and return to facts. My studies in physics led me to believe that all natural forces—gravity, centrifugal force, and even capillary attraction—are, like electricity and magnetism, both positive and negative in their action. If they do not normally alternate between a positive and negative current, as electricity does, they can be made to do so. Gravity and capillary attraction, as we know them, always act positively; that is, they always attract. ”

“ We have defined energy to be the power of doing work, and although every one has a general notion of what is meant by work, that notion may not be sufficiently precise for the purpose of this volume. How, then, are we to measure work? Fortunately, we have not far to go for a practical means of doing this. Indeed, there is a force at hand which enables us to accomplish this measurement with the greatest precision, and this force is gravity. ”

“ In all the operations of chemical transmutations no material is lost and no power wasted, and, by the law of the conservation and correlation of force, both energy and material must exist as correlatives. [Pg 55] This places the nature of matter upon the same basis as the origin of power. The transformation of force into material is impossible. Force follows the laws of motion, and atoms the law of form obedient to the lines of motion. ”

“ When we consider the unknown circumstance of an object, by which the degree or quantity of its effect is fixed and determined, we call that its power: And accordingly, it is allowed by all philosophers, that the effect is the measure of the power. But if they had any idea of power, as it is in itself, why could not they Measure it in itself? The dispute whether the force of a body in motion be as its velocity, or the square of its velocity ”

“ The cultivation and popularization of correct dynamical ideas since the time of Galileo and Newton has effected an immense change in the language and ideas of common life, but it is only within recent times, and in consequence of the increasing importance of machinery, that the ideas of force, energy, and power have become accurately distinguished from each other. ”

“ No mechanical contrivance, no mechanism furnishes any power, but is only a means of applying power; and, even if the term mechanical embraces all the phenomena of matter in motion, we still have the question as to whether the mechanism or the matter moves by its own power, or is moved by the effort of some intelligent being. ”

“ No matter from what ultimate cause the power which is called gravitation originates—be it a virtue lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without, or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids, magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses—still, when finally brought under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy, its direction is from many points on all sides toward the sun's centre. ”

“ With this force, obtained by simply blending negative and positive electricity with electricity of the third element or state, and charging a body sufficiently with this fluid, gravitation is nullified or partly reversed, and the earth repels the body with the same or greater power than that with which it still attracts or attracted it, so that it may be suspended or caused to move away into space. ”

“ And, in the second place, physiologists, like Du Bois-Reymond, recognize force as the invariable concomitant, if not the essential attribute of matter, and assume that to every constant primordial mass belongs a constant primordial quantity of force, so that the problem of physics, chemistry, and physiology, resolves itself into the quantitative determination of the mechanical interactions of material constants primarily endowed with forces acting equally in all directions, or, as they express it, constant central forces. ”

“ The advancement of mechanical science has also been greatly aided by analogy. An abstract and intangible existence like force demands much power of conception, but it has a perfect concrete representative in a line, the end of which may denote the point of application, and the direction the line of action of the force, while the length can be made arbitrarily to denote the amount of the force. ”

“ The further outwards the primary force streams forth, the weaker it becomes, but weaker too becomes the power of matter, since its power is greatest where the collision with the primary power is most violent, i.e. in the Power Connesor. ”

“ This part of mechanics was cultivated by the ancients in the five powers which relate to manual arts, who considered gravity (it not being a manual power) , no otherwise than as it moved weights by those powers. Our design not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject not manual but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as the mathematical principles if philosophy ”

“ After mass and energy there is one physical quantity which plays a very fundamental part in modern physics, known as Action. Action here is a very technical term, and is not to be confused [Pg 153] with Newton’s ‘Action and Reaction.’ In the relativity theory in particular this seems in many respects to be the most fundamental thing of all. ”

“ The attractive power of the former, between two bodies, is equal to the product of their masses; the repulsive power of the latter is equal to the product of the quantities of electricity bound to them, and that, as we have seen, is regulated by the respective mass of each body. ”

“ In the phraseology of our mechanics we define matter and force as if they had an independent existence. But we have no conception of inert matter or of disembodied force. All we know of matter is its pressure and its motion. ”

“ What, then, has science demonstrated? Science has demonstrated the Unity of the Forces: Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, are all correlated to one another, and are all mutually convertible one into another. Heat may be said to produce electricity—electricity to produce heat; magnetism to produce electricity—electricity, magnetism, and so on for the rest.
Unity of Matter and Force.—"For if matter were not force, and immediately known as force, it could not be known at all—could not be rationally inferred." ”

“ Here speculation is excluded. Matter is simply one of the three factors which enters, by virtue of its mass, into our formulae for energy, momentum, etc. Force is simply a quantity of which we need to know only its magnitude, direction, point of application and the time during which it is applied. The Newtonian conception of force—the producer of motion—is adequate. All troublesome questions as to how force acts, of the mechanism by means of which its effects are produced are held in abeyance. ”

“ In the third place, it has become more and more evident with the progress of physics that large generalisations, such as the conservation of energy or mass, are far from certain and are very likely only approximate. ”

“ Every particle of matter being possessed of an attracting power, the effect of the whole must be in proportion to the number of attracting particles: that is, to the quantity of matter in the body. This is demonstrated from experiments on pendulums: for, if they are of equal lengths, whatever their weights be, they always vibrate in equal times. ”

“ No one has ever succeeded in making electricity and gravity different aspects of the same thing. Today our theories of physics, the laws of physics, are a multitude of different parts and pieces that do not fit together very well. ”

“ In how many ways do we by our theories dodge the crucial problem of how energy is really transmitted, that is, how matter can act on distant matter across seemingly vacant space. Gravity, and indeed all the forms of the attractive forces, come under this head. True, we observe certain regularities in the way in which these phenomena occur, and the phenomenon at one place seems to be somehow dependent on some exercise of force at another place. And so we invent an ingenious theory, and fortify it all around with ponderous algebraic artillery for defense against all attack. ”