Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
The genesis of all other modes of force from Chemical Action, scarcely
needs pointing out. The ordinary accompaniment of chemical combination
is heat; and when the affinities are intense, light also is, under fit
conditions, produced. Chemical changes involving alteration of bulk,
cause motion, both in the combining elements and in adjacent masses of
matter: witness the propulsion of a bullet by the explosion of
gunpowder. In the galvanic battery we see electricity resulting from
chemical composition and decomposition. While through the medium of this
electricity, Chemical Action produces magnetism.
These facts, the larger part of which are culled from Mr. Grove’s work
on “The Correlation of Physical Forces,” show us that each force is
transformable, directly or indirectly, into the others. In every change
Force undergoes metamorphosis; and from the new form or forms it
assumes, may subsequently result either the previous one or any of the
rest, in endless variety of order and combination. It is further
becoming manifest that the physical forces stand not simply in
qualitative correlations with each other, but also in quantitative
correlations. Besides proving that one mode of force may be transformed
into another mode, experiments illustrate the truth that from a definite
amount of one, definite amounts of others always arise. Ordinarily it is
indeed difficult to show this; since it mostly happens that the
transformation of any force is not into some one of the rest but into
several of them: the proportions being determined by the ever-varying
conditions. But in certain cases, positive results have been reached.
Mr. Joule has ascertained that the fall of 772 lbs. through one foot,
will raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree of Fahrenheit.
The investigations of Dulong, Petit and Neumann, have proved a relation
in amount between the affinities of combining bodies and the heat
evolved during their combination. Between chemical action and voltaic
electricity, a quantitative connexion has also been established:
Faraday’s experiments implying that a specific measure of electricity is
disengaged by a given measure of chemical action. The well-determined
relations between the quantities of heat generated and water turned into
steam, or still better the known expansion produced in steam by each
additional degree of heat, may be cited in further evidence. Whence it
is no longer doubted that among the several forms which force assumes,
the quantitative relations are fixed. The conclusion tacitly agreed on
by physicists, is, not only that the physical forces undergo
metamorphoses, but that a certain amount of each is the constant
equivalent of certain amounts of the others.
* * * * *
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