On the Various Forces of Nature and Their Relations to Each Other


Book Description

Excerpt from A Course of Six Lectures on the Various Forces of Matter, and Their Relations to Each Other Which was first, Matter or Force? If we think on this question we shall find that we are unable to conceive of matter without force, or force without matter. When God created the elements of which the earth is composed, He created certain wondrous forces, which are set free, and become evident when matter acts on matter. All these forces, with many differences, have much in common, and if one is set free it will immediately endeavour to free its com panions. Thus heat will enable us to eliminate light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical p action; chemical action will educe light, elec tricity, and heat; in this way we find that all the forces in nature tend to form mutually dependent systems, and as the motion of one star affects another, so force in action liberates and renders evident forces previously tranquil. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




A Course of Six Lectures on the Various Forces of Matter and Their Relations to Each Other


Book Description

These popular lectures are free from the technicalities of science. They treat of gravitation, cohesion, chemical affinity, heat, magnetism, and electricity; and are remarkable alike for the philosophical precision of their statements and the lucid beauty of their illustrations. It is rarely that a treatise on physical science presents so much sound and important information in such a singularly attractive manner.




Force


Book Description

An eminent engineer and historian tackles one of the most elemental aspects of life: how we experience and utilize physical force “Another gem from a master of technology writing.”—Kirkus Reviews Force explores how humans interact with the material world in the course of their everyday activities. This book for the general reader also considers the significance of force in shaping societies and cultures. Celebrated author Henry Petroski delves into the ongoing physical interaction between people and things that enables them to stay put or causes them to move. He explores the range of daily human experience whereby we feel the sensations of push and pull, resistance and assistance. The book is also about metaphorical force, which manifests itself as pressure and relief, achievement and defeat. Petroski draws from a variety of disciplines to make the case that force—represented especially by our sense of touch—is a unifying principle that pervades our lives. In the wake of a prolonged global pandemic that increasingly cautioned us about contact with the physical world, Petroski offers a new perspective on the importance of the sensation and power of touch.










Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Long Civil War


Book Description

American literature in the nineteenth century is often divided into two asymmetrical halves, neatly separated by the Civil War. In Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Long Civil War, Cody Marrs argues that the war is a far more elastic boundary for literary history than has frequently been assumed. Focusing on the later writings of Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, this book shows how the war took imaginative shape across, and even beyond, the nineteenth century, inflecting literary forms and expressions for decades after 1865. These writers, Marrs demonstrates, are best understood not as antebellum or postbellum figures but as transbellum authors who cipher their later experiences through their wartime impressions and prewar ideals. This book is a bold, revisionary contribution to debates about temporality, periodization, and the shape of American literary history.