earth's, just the same as the horse's is to that of the whim. Neither
could any one say that the relative rotation of the horse to a star, or
tower, or, say, a bridge, outside of his ring, could have any effect on
his revolution round the mill, or his always keeping his same side to
it, there being no mechanical connection between them, nor any law of
attraction; and the same is the case between the moon and a fixed star.
Now, we may begin to consider what effects must be produced by the moon
not rotating on its axis, and we can do so most easily by continuing to
work with our gin horse, or some equivalent substitute. It would not
cost a great deal of ingenuity to plant a steam engine in the centre of
the mill he is supposed to be driving, and to drive with it not only
the mill but the horse also at the end of his lever. There might be
some dissipation--Professor Tate would call it degradation--of energy
in such an experiment, but we could get over that by making _divina
Palladis arte_ a wooden horse. We might arrange the steam-engine so as
to cause the mill to make 27-1/3 revolutions for one made by our wooden
horse, and so have a sort of a model of the earth and moon performing
their most important relative motions. Then, having got our model ready
for action, instead of filling it _armato milite_ we might fill it half
full of water. We fill it only half full, because the armed soldiers
could not lie on the top of each other in the _other_ horse, and there
would be a vacant space above them for air, thus making the resemblance
between the two the more similar; and also because it suits our purpose
better, as will soon be seen. We have still to propose that a lot of
holes should be supposed to be made in the sides of _our_ horse all
round, just a little higher than between wind and water. _Pallas_
did not order any holes to be made in _hers_ as far as we know, even
for ventilation, though we think it would have been an advantage; but
that will not spoil the experiment we are now prepared for. Let the
steam-engine be started now and we shall soon see what will happen to
the water. As the speed increases it will not be long till it begins to
be thrown out, not from the side turned towards the mill but from the
one furthest from it; and if it is increased sufficiently the whole of
it will be very soon thrown out. If we could now close up the holes on
the side of the horse turned towards the mill, it would so happen that
a good deal of the air would be expelled also; and if the speed of the
horse were brought up so as to equal that of the moon in its orbit,
there would be nothing more, at the most, than traces of air left even
in it. The expelling agent in this experiment would, of course, be
centrifugal force, and we do not need to exercise our mental faculties
very greatly, to comprehend that it is the same force that has driven
both air and water away from the side of the moon always turned towards
the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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