On the various forces of nature and their relations to each otherFaraday, Michael
Science
On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other
Faraday, Michael
Physics
Do me the favour to pay me as much attention as you did at our last
meeting, and I shall not repent of that which I have proposed to
undertake. It will be impossible for us to consider the Laws of
Nature, and what they effect, unless we now and then give our sole
attention, so as to obtain a clear idea upon the subject. Give me now
that attention, and then, I trust, we shall not part without your
knowing something about those Laws, and the manner in which they act.
You recollect, upon the last occasion, I explained that all bodies
attracted each other, and that this power we called _gravitation_. I
told you that when we brought these two bodies [two equal sized ivory
balls suspended by threads] near together, they attracted each other,
and that we might suppose that the whole power of this attraction was
exerted between their respective centres of gravity; and furthermore,
you learned from me, that if, instead of a small ball, I took a larger
one, like _that_ [changing one of the balls for a much larger one],
there was much more of this attraction exerted; or, if I made this
ball larger and larger, until, if it were possible, it became as large
as the Earth itself--or, I might take the Earth itself as the large
ball--that _then_ the attraction would become so powerful as to cause
them to rush together in this manner [dropping the ivory ball]. You
sit _there_ upright, and I stand upright _here_, because we keep our
centres of gravity properly balanced with respect to the earth; and
I need not tell you that on the other side of this world the people
are standing and moving about with their feet towards our feet, in a
reversed position as compared with us, and all by means of this power
of gravitation to the centre of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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