The Machinery of the Universe: Mechanical Conceptions of Physical PhenomenaDolbear, A. E. (Amos Emerson)
Science
The Machinery of the Universe: Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena
Dolbear, A. E. (Amos Emerson)
Force and energy
We will turn now to the mode in which electricity manifests itself, and
what it can do. It may be well to point out at the outset what has
occasionally been stated, but which has not received the philosophical
attention it deserves--namely, that electrical phenomena are reversible;
that is, any kind of a physical process which is capable of producing
electricity, electricity is itself able to produce. Thus to name a few:
If mechanical motion develops electricity, electricity will produce
mechanical motion; the movement of a pith ball and an electric motor are
examples. If chemical action can produce it, it will produce chemical
action, as in the decomposition of water and electro-plating. As heat
may be its antecedent, so will it produce heat. If magnetism be an
antecedent factor, magnetism may be its product. What is called
induction may give rise to it in an adjacent conductor, and, likewise,
induction may be its effect.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Torpedo.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Dynamo and Motor.]
Let us suppose ourselves to be in a building in which a steam-engine is
at work. There is fuel, the furnace, the boiler, the pipes, the engine
with its fly-wheel turning. The fuel burns in the furnace, the water is
superheated in the boiler, the steam is directed by the pipes, the
piston is moved by the steam pressure, and the fly-wheel rotates
because of proper mechanism between it and the piston. No one who has
given attention to the successive steps in the process is so puzzled as
to feel the need of inventing a particular force, or a new kind of
matter, or any agency, at any stage of the process, different from the
simple mechanical ones represented by a push or a pull. Even if he
cannot see clearly how heat can produce a push, he does not venture to
assume a genii to do the work, but for the time is content with saying
that if he starts with motion in the furnace and stops with the motion
of the fly-wheel, any assumption of any other factor than some form of
motion between the two would be gratuitous. He can truthfully say that
he understands the _nature_ of that which goes on between the furnace
and the wheel; that it is some sort of motion, the particular kind of
which he might make out at his leisure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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