Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884
Various
Science -- Periodicals
[Footnote 3: On the other hand, in liquids, on account of the crowdedness
of the molecules, the diffusion of heat must be chiefly by interchange of
energies between the molecules, and should be, as experiment proves it is,
enormously more rapid than the diffusion of the molecules themselves, and
this again ought to be much less rapid than either the material or thermal
diffusivities of gases. Thus the diffusivity of common salt through water
was found by Fick to be as small as 0.0000112 square centimeter per second;
nearly 200 times as great as this is the diffusivity of heat through water,
which was found by J.T. Bottomley to be about 0.002 square centimeter per
second. The material diffusivities of gases, according to Loschmidt's
experiments, range from 0.98 (the interdiffusivity of carbonic acid and
nitrous oxide) to 0.642 (the interdiffusivity of carbonic oxide and
hydrogen), while the thermal diffusivities of gases, calculated according
to Clausius' and Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases, are 0.089 for carbonic
acid, 0.16 for common air of other gases of nearly the same density, and
1.12 for hydrogen (all, both material and thermal, being reckoned in square
centimeters per second).]
Rich as it is in practical results, the kinetic theory of gases, as
hitherto developed, stops absolutely short at the atom or molecule, and
gives not even a suggestion toward explaining the properties in virtue of
which the atoms or molecules mutually influence one another. For some
guidance toward a deeper and more comprehensive theory of matter, we may
look back with advantage to the end of last century and beginning of this
century, and find Rumford's conclusion regarding the heat generated in
boring a brass gun: "It appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not
quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything capable of being
excited and communicated in the manner the heat was excited and
communicated in these experiments, except it be MOTION;" and Davy's still
more suggestive statements: "The phenomena of repulsion are not dependent
on a peculiar elastic fluid for their existence." ... "Heat may be defined
as a peculiar motion, probably a vibration, of the corpuscles of bodies,
tending to separate them." ... "To distinguish this motion from others, and
to signify the causes of our sensations of heat, etc., the name _repulsive_
motion has been adopted." Here we have a most important idea. It would be
somewhat a bold figure of speech to say the earth and moon are kept apart
by a repulsive motion; and yet, after all, what is centrifugal force but a
repulsive motion, and may it not be that there is no such thing as
repulsion, and that it is solely by inertia that what seems to be repulsion
is produced? Two bodies fly together, and, accelerated by mutual
attraction, if they do not precisely hit one another, they cannot but
separate in virtue of the inertia of their masses. So, after dashing past
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