The unity of matter : being thoughts on the nature, weight, & expansion of gases / by G.T. Carruthers.

  • Carruthers, G. T. (George Thompson)
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unity of matter : being thoughts on the nature, weight, & expansion of gases / by G.T. Carruthers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    barren central floating spheres of oxygen, besides the mother liquid which evaporates and condenses the vapour according to circumstances of pressure and temperature. I have deduced the volume and weight of a pound of hydrogen from another consideration which in some respects is more satisfactory than that just now given. By the law of gravity a solid pound falling 16 feet would rise to the same height again; but if it were of the density of a pound to a foot, and were to burst and diffuse itself, in rising, into a vertical chamber of a foot square it would do no more work if it were to occupy 32 feet of the chamber. Taking note of this, we proceed. In steam at 212° the volume of a pound is 26-36 cubio feet and the tension is 2116-4 lbs. on the square foot. We need not consider the pressure on the sides of the chamber, for these are supposed to be sustained by the parabolic curves of the atoms, each travelling with its terminal velocity in the medium and with a velocity at the vertex in the ratio of its initial velocity. Such a velocity as would necessarily be obtained if the force was directly as the atom's surface and inversely as its weight. The tension, then, is made up of a pressure keeping 2116-4 lbs. from falling and of a play of particles through the 26-36 cubic feet. This play of particles is due entirely to their height of fall, for it is found that a reduction of the volume requires no additional pressure to be applied to the piston but that the particles drop down into water when the density is disturbed. This may perhaps be explained thus: Let the steam consist of but one particle of a pound weight, then it has a momentum of 1 x 41 to carry it up 26-36 feet and a momentum there of 2116»4 x 32 tt>s. to resist the fall of the piston. Let now the volume of the chamber be reduced to 16 feet, the pound would then indeed attempt to rise 26*36 feet, but as £2 feet velocity would be lost in rising 16 feet, the extent to which it could then move the piston upwards, would only