Newton's Principia : $b The mathematical principles of natural philosophyNewton, Isaac
General
Newton's Principia : $b The mathematical principles of natural philosophy
Newton, Isaac
Celestial mechanics -- Early works to 1800; Mechanics -- Early works to 1800
CASE 4. Let the spheres attract each other mutually, and the force will
be doubled, but the proportion will remain. Q.E.D.
CASE 5. Let the corpuscle p be placed within the sphere AEBF;
and because the force of the plane ef upon the corpuscle is as
the solid contained under that plane and the distance pg; and
the contrary force of the plane EF as the solid contained under that
plane and the distance pG; the force compounded of both will
be as the difference of the solids, that is, as the sum of the equal
planes drawn into half the difference of the distances; that is, as
that sum drawn into pS, the distance of the corpuscle from the
centre of the sphere. And, by a like reasoning, the attraction of all
the planes EF, ef, throughout the whole sphere, that is, the
attraction of the whole sphere, is conjunctly as the sum of all the
planes, or as the whole sphere, and as pS, the distance of the
corpuscle from the centre of the sphere. Q.E.D.
CASE 6. And if there be composed a new sphere out of innumerable
corpuscles such as p, situate within the first sphere AEBF, it
may be proved, as before, that the attraction, whether single of one
sphere towards the other, or mutual of both towards each other, will be
as the distance pS of the centres. Q.E.D.
PROPOSITION LXXVIII. THEOREM XXXVIII.
If spheres in the progress from the centre to the circumference be
however dissimilar and unequable, but similar on every side round about
at all given distances from the centre; and the attractive force of
every point be as the distance of the attracted body; I say, that the
entire force with which two spheres of this kind attract each other
mutually is proportional to the distance between the centres of the
spheres.
This is demonstrated from the foregoing Proposition, in the same manner
as Proposition LXXVI was demonstrated from Proposition LXXV.
COR. Those things that were above demonstrated in Prop. X and LXIV, of
the motion of bodies round the centres of conic sections, take place
when all the attractions are made by the force of sphærical bodies of
the condition above described, and the attracted bodies are spheres of
the same kind.
SCHOLIUM.
I have now explained the two principal cases of attractions; to wit,
when the centripetal forces decrease in a duplicate ratio of the
distances, or increase in a simple ratio of the distances, causing
the bodies in both[Pg 226] cases to revolve in conic sections, and composing
sphærical bodies whose centripetal forces observe the same law of
increase or decrease in the recess from the centre as the forces of the
particles themselves do; which is very remarkable. It would be tedious
to run over the other cases, whose conclusions are less elegant and
important, so particularly as I have done these. I choose rather to
comprehend and determine them all by one general method as follows.
LEMMA XXIX.
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