Produced by Chris Curnow, Andrew D. Hwang, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) _THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE_ THE MACHINERY OF THE UNIVERSE MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS OF PHYSICAL PHENOMENA BY A. E. DOLBEAR, A.B., A.M., M.E., PH.D. PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, TUFTS COLLEGE, MASS. PUBLISHED UNDER GENERAL LITERATURE COMMITTEE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1897. PREFACE For thirty years or more the expressions "Correlation of the Physical Forces" and "The Conservation of Energy" have been common, yet few persons have taken the necessary pains to think out clearly what mechanical changes take place when one form of energy is transformed into another. Since Tyndall gave us his book called _Heat as a Mode of Motion_ neither lecturers nor text-books have attempted to explain how all phenomena are the necessary outcome of the various forms of motion. In general, phenomena have been attributed to _forces_--a metaphysical term, which explains nothing and is merely a stop-gap, and is really not at all needful in these days, seeing that transformable modes of motion, easily perceived and understood, may be substituted in all cases for forces. In December 1895 the author gave a lecture before the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, on "Mechanical Conceptions of Electrical Phenomena," in which he undertook to make clear what happens when electrical phenomena appear. The publication of this lecture in _The Journal of the Franklin Institute_ and in _Nature_ brought an urgent request that it should be enlarged somewhat and published in a form more convenient for the public. The enlargement consists in the addition of a chapter on the "_Contrasted Properties of Matter and the Ether_," a chapter containing something which the author believes to be of philosophical importance in these days when electricity is so generally described as a phenomenon of the ether. A. E. DOLBEAR. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I Ideas of phenomena ancient and modern, metaphysical and mechanical--Imponderables--Forces, invented and discarded--Explanations--Energy, its factors, Kinetic and Potential--Motions, kinds and transformations of--Mechanical, molecular, and atomic--Invention of Ethers, Faraday's conceptions p. 7 CHAPTER II