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Reliability, maintainability and risk.

Practical methods for engineers 9th


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cold.” This was confirmed by the experiments of others. But some
years after, “upon considering the subject more closely, I began to
suspect that Mr. Wilson, Mr. Six, and myself, had all committed an
error in regarding the cold which accompanies the dew, as an effect
of the formation of the dew.” He now considered it rather as the
cause: and soon found that he was able to account for the
circumstances of this formation, many of them curious and
paradoxical, by supposing the bodies on which dew is deposited, to
be cooled down, by radiation into the clear night-sky, to the proper
temperature. The same principle will obviously explain the formation
of mists over streams and lakes when the air is cooler than the
water; which was put forward by Davy, even in 1810, as a new
doctrine, or at least not familiar.
60 Essay on Dew, p. 1.

Hygrometers.—According as air has more or less of vapor in


comparison with that which its temperature and pressure enable it to
contain, it is more or less humid; and an instrument which measures
the degrees of such a gradation is a hygrometer. The hygrometers
which were at first invented, were those which measured the
moisture by its effect in producing expansion or contraction in certain
organic substances; thus De Saussure devised a hair-hygrometer,
De Luc a whalebone-hygrometer, and Dalton used a piece of
whipcord. All these contrivances were variable in the amount of their
indications under the same circumstances; and, moreover, it was not
easy to know the physical meaning of the degree indicated. The
dew-point, or constituent temperature of the vapor which exists in the
air, is, on 178 the other hand, both constant and definite. The
determination of this point, as a datum for the moisture of the
atmosphere, was employed by Le Roi, and by Dalton (1802), the
condensation being obtained by cold water: 61 and finally, Mr. Daniell
(1812) constructed an instrument, where the condensing
temperature was produced by evaporation of ether, in a very
convenient manner. This invention (Daniell’s Hygrometer) enables us
to determine the quantity of vapor which exists in a given mass of
the atmosphere at any time of observation.
61 Daniell, Met. Ess. p. 142. Manch. Mem. vol. v. p. 581.

[2nd Ed.] [As a happy application of the Atmological Laws which


have been discovered, I may mention the completion of the theory
and use of the Wet-bulb Hygrometer; an instrument in which, from
the depression of temperature produced by wetting the bulb of a
thermometer, we infer the further depression which would produce
dew. Of this instrument the history is thus summed up by Prof.
Forbes:—“Hutton invented the method; Leslie revived and extended
it, giving probably the earliest, though an imperfect theory; Gay-
Lussac, by his excellent experiments and reasoning from them,
completed the theory, so far as perfectly dry air is concerned; Ivory
extended the theory; which was reduced to practice by Auguste and
Bohnenberger, who determined the constant with accuracy. English
observers have done little more than confirm the conclusions of our
industrious Germanic neighbors; nevertheless the experiments of
Apjohn and Prinsep must ever be considered as conclusively settling
the value of the coefficient near the one extremity of the scale, as
those of Kæmtz have done for the other.” 62
62 Second Report on Meteorology, p. 101.

Prof. Forbes’s two Reports On the Recent Progress and Present


State of Meteorology given among the Reports of the British
Association for 1832 and 1840, contain a complete and luminous
account of recent researches on this subject. It may perhaps be
asked why I have not given Meteorology a place among the
Inductive Sciences; but if the reader refers to these accounts, or any
other adequate view of the subject, he will see that Meteorology is
not a single Inductive Science, but the application of several
sciences to the explanation of terrestrial and atmospheric
phenomena. Of the sciences so applied, Thermotics and Atmology
are the principal ones. But others also come into play; as Optics, in
the explanation of Rainbows, Halos, 179 Parhelia, Coronæ, Glories,
and the like; Electricity, in the explanation of Thunder and Lightning,
Hail, Aurora Borealis; to which others might be added.]

Clouds.—When vapor becomes visible by being cooled below its


constituent temperature, it forms itself into a very fine watery powder,
the diameter of the particles of which this powder consists being very
small: they are estimated by various writers, from 1⁄100,000th to 1⁄20,000th
of an inch. 63 Such particles, even if solid, would descend very
slowly; and very slight causes would suffice for their suspension,
without recurring to the hypothesis of vesicles, of which we have
already spoken. Indeed that hypothesis will not explain the fact,
except we suppose these vesicles filled with a rarer air than that of
the atmosphere; and, accordingly, though this hypothesis is still
maintained by some, 64 it is asserted as a fact of observation, proved
by optical or other phenomena, and not deduced from the
suspension of clouds. Yet the latter result is still variously explained
by different philosophers: thus, M. Gay-Lussac 65 accounts for it by
upward currents of air, and Fresnel explains it by the heat and
rarefaction of air in the interior of the cloud.
63 Kæmtz, Met. i. 393.

64 Ib. i. 393. Robison, ii. 13.


65 Ann. Chim. xxv. 1822.

Classification of Clouds.—A classification of clouds can then only


be consistent and intelligible when it rests upon their atmological
conditions. Such a system was proposed by Mr. Luke Howard, in
1802–3. His primary modifications are, Cirrus, Cumulus, and Stratus,
which the Germans have translated by terms equivalent in English to
feather-cloud, heap-cloud, and layer-cloud. The cumulus increases
by accumulations on its top, and floats in the air with a horizontal
base; the stratus grows from below, and spreads along the earth; the
cirrus consists of fibres in the higher regions of the atmosphere,
which grow every way. Between the simple modifications are
intermediate ones, cirro-cumulus and cirro-stratus; and, again,
compound ones, the cumulo-stratus and the nimbus, or rain-cloud.
These distinctions have been generally accepted all over Europe:
and have rendered a description of all the processes which go on in
the atmosphere far more definite and clear than it could be made
before their use.

I omit a mass of facts and opinions, supposed laws of phenomena


and assigned causes, which abound in meteorology more than in
any other science. The slightest consideration will show us what a
great 180 amount of labor, of persevering and combined observation,
the progress of this branch of knowledge requires. I do not even
speak of the condition of the more elevated parts of the atmosphere.
The diminution of temperature as we ascend, one of the most
marked of atmospheric facts, has been variously explained by
different writers. Thus Dalton 66 (1808) refers it to a principle “that
each atom of air, in the same perpendicular column, is possessed of
the same degree of heat,” which principle he conceives to be entirely
empirical in this case. Fourier says 67 (1817), “This phenomenon
results from several causes: one of the principal is the progressive
extinction of the rays of heat in the successive strata of the
atmosphere.”
66 New Syst. of Chem. vol. i. p. 125.

67 Ann. Chim. vi. 285.

Leaving, therefore, the application of thermotical and atmological


principles in particular cases, let us consider for a moment the
general views to which they have led philosophers. ~Additional
material in the 3rd edition.~
CHAPTER IV.

Physical Theories of Heat.

W HEN we look at the condition of that branch of knowledge


which, according to the phraseology already employed, we
must call Physical Thermotics, in opposition to Formal Thermotics,
which gives us detached laws of phenomena, we find the prospect
very different from that which was presented to us by physical
astronomy, optics, and acoustics. In these sciences, the maintainers
of a distinct and comprehensive theory have professed at least to
show that it explains and includes the principal laws of phenomena
of various kinds; in Thermotics, we have only attempts to explain a
part of the facts. We have here no example of an hypothesis which,
assumed in order to explain one class of phenomena, has been
found also to account exactly for another; as when central forces led
to the precession of the equinoxes, or when the explanation of
polarization explained also double refraction; or when the pressure
of the atmosphere, as measured by the barometer, gave the true
velocity of sound. Such coincidences, or consiliences, as I have
elsewhere called them, are the test of truth; and thermotical theories
cannot yet exhibit credentials of this kind. 181

On looking back at our view of this science, it will be seen that it


may be distinguished into two parts; the Doctrines of Conduction and
Radiation, which we call Thermotics proper; and the Doctrines
respecting the relation of Heat, Airs, and Moisture, which we have
termed Atmology. These two subjects differ in their bearing on our
hypothetical views.
Thermotical Theories.—The phenomena of radiant heat, like those
of radiant light, obviously admit of general explanation in two
different ways;—by the emission of material particles, or by the
propagation of undulations. Both these opinions have found
supporters. Probably most persons, in adopting Prevost’s theory of
exchanges, conceive the radiation of heat to be the radiation of
matter. The undulation hypothesis, on the other hand, appears to be
suggested by the production of heat by friction, and was accordingly
maintained by Rumford and others. Leslie 68 appears, in a great part
of his Inquiry, to be a supporter of some undulatory doctrine, but it is
extremely difficult to make out what his undulating medium is; or
rather, his opinions wavered during his progress. In page 31, he
asks, “What is this calorific and frigorific fluid? and after keeping the
reader in suspense for a moment, he replies,
“Quod petis hic est.
It is merely the ambient AIR.” But at page 150, he again asks the
question, and, at page 188, he answers, “It is the same subtile
matter that, according to its different modes of existence, constitutes
either heat or light.” A person thus vacillating between two opinions,
one of which is palpably false, and the other laden with exceeding
difficulties which he does not even attempt to remove, had little right
to protest against 69 “the sportive freaks of some intangible aura;” to
rank all other hypotheses than his own with the “occult qualities of
the schools;” and to class the “prejudices” of his opponents with the
tenets of those who maintained the fuga vacui in opposition to
Torricelli. It is worth while noticing this kind of rhetoric, in order to
observe, that it may be used just as easily on the wrong side as on
the right.
68An Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of
Heat, 1804.
69 Ib. p. 47.

Till recently, the theory of material heat, and of its propagation by


emission, was probably the one most in favor with those who had
studied mathematical thermotics. As we have said, the laws of 182
conduction, in their ultimate analytical form, were almost identical
with the laws of motion of fluids. Fourier’s principle also, that the
radiation of heat takes place from points below the surface, and is
intercepted by the superficial particles, appears to favor the notion of
material emission.

Accordingly, some of the most eminent modern French


mathematicians have accepted and extended the hypothesis of a
material caloric. In addition to Fourier’s doctrine of molecular extra-
radiation, Laplace and Poisson have maintained the hypothesis of
molecular intra-radiation, as the mode in which conduction takes
place; that is, they say that the particles of bodies are to be
considered as discrete, or as points separated from each other, and
acting on each other at a distance; and the conduction of heat from
one part to another, is performed by radiation between all
neighboring particles. They hold that, without this hypothesis, the
differential equations expressing the conditions of conduction cannot
be made homogeneous: but this assertion rests, I conceive, on an
error, as Fourier has shown, by dispensing with the hypothesis. The
necessity of the hypothesis of discrete molecular action in bodies, is
maintained in all cases by M. Poisson; and he has asserted
Laplace’s theory of capillary attraction to be defective on this ground,
as Laplace asserted Fourier’s reasoning respecting heat to be so. In
reality, however, this hypothesis of discrete molecules cannot be
maintained as a physical truth; for the law of molecular action, which
is assumed in the reasoning, after answering its purpose in the
progress of calculation, vanishes in the result; the conclusion is the
same, whatever law of the intervals of the molecules be assumed.
The definite integral, which expresses the whole action, no more
proves that this action is actually made of the differential parts by
means of which it was found, than the processes of finding the
weight of a body by integration, prove it to be made up of differential
weights. And therefore, even if we were to adopt the emission theory
of heat, we are by no means bound to take along with it the
hypothesis of discrete molecules.

But the recent discovery of the refraction, polarization, and


depolarization of heat, has quite altered the theoretical aspect of the
subject, and, almost at a single blow, ruined the emission theory.
Since heat is reflected and refracted like light, analogy would lead us
to conclude that the mechanism of the processes is the same in the
two cases. And when we add to these properties the property of
polarization, it is scarcely possible to believe otherwise than that
heat consists in 183 transverse vibrations; for no wise philosopher
would attempt an explanation by ascribing poles to the emitted
particles, after the experience which Optics affords, of the utter
failure of such machinery.

But here the question occurs, If heat consists in vibrations,


whence arises the extraordinary identity of the laws of its
propagation with the laws of the flow of matter? How is it that, in
conducted heat, this vibration creeps slowly from one part of the
body to another, the part first heated remaining hottest; instead of
leaving its first place and travelling rapidly to another, as the
vibrations of sound and light do? The answer to these questions has
been put in a very distinct and plausible form by that distinguished
philosopher, M. Ampère, who published a Note on Heat and Light
considered as the results of Vibratory Motion, 70 in 1834 and 1835;
and though this answer is an hypothesis, it at least shows that there
is no fatal force in the difficulty.
70Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, vol. xlix. p. 225. Ann.
Chim. tom. lvii. p. 434.

M. Ampère’s hypothesis is this; that bodies consist of solid


molecules, which may be considered as arranged at intervals in a
very rare ether; and that the vibrations of the molecules, causing
vibrations of the ether and caused by them, constitute heat. On
these suppositions, we should have the phenomena of conduction
explained; for if the molecules at one end of a bar be hot, and
therefore in a state of vibration, while the others are at rest, the
vibrating molecules propagate vibrations in the ether, but these
vibrations do not produce heat, except in proportion as they put the
quiescent molecules of the bar in vibration; and the ether being very
rare compared with the molecules, it is only by the repeated
impulses of many successive vibrations that the nearest quiescent
molecules are made to vibrate; after which they combine in
communicating the vibration to the more remote molecules. “We
then find necessarily,” M. Ampère adds, “the same equations as
those found by Fourier for the distribution of heat, setting out from
the same hypothesis, that the temperature or heat transmitted is
proportional to the difference of the temperatures.”

Since the undulatory hypothesis of heat can thus answer all


obvious objections, we may consider it as upon its trial, to be
confirmed or modified by future discoveries; and especially by an
enlarged knowledge of the laws of the polarization of heat.
[2nd Ed.] [Since the first edition was written, the analogies
between light and heat have been further extended, as I have
already stated. It 184 has been discovered by MM. Biot and Melloni
that quartz impresses a circular polarization upon heat; and by Prof.
Forbes that mica, of a certain thickness, produces phenomena such
as would be produced by the impression of circular polarization of
the supposed transversal vibrations of radiant heat; and further, a
rhomb of rock-salt, of the shape of the glass rhomb which verified
Fresnel’s extraordinary anticipation of the circular polarization of
light, verified the expectation, founded upon other analogies, of the
polarization of heat. By passing polarized heat through various
thicknesses of mica, Prof. Forbes has attempted to calculate the
length of an undulation for heat.

These analogies cannot fail to produce a strong disposition to


believe that light and heat, essences so closely connected that they
can hardly be separated, and thus shown to have so many curious
properties in common, are propagated by the same machinery; and
thus we are led to an Undulatory Theory of Heat.

Yet such a Theory has not yet by any means received full
confirmation. It depends upon the analogy and the connexion of the
Theory of Light, and would have little weight if those were removed.
For the separation of the rays in double refraction, and the
phenomena of periodical intensity, the two classes of facts out of
which the Undulatory Theory of Optics principally grew, have neither
of them been detected in thermotical experiments. Prof. Forbes has
assumed alternations of heat for increasing thicknesses of mica, but
in his experiments we find only one maximum. The occurrence of
alternate maxima and minima under the like circumstances would
exhibit visible waves of heat, as the fringes of shadows do of light,
and would thus add much to the evidence of the theory.

Even if I conceived the Undulatory Theory of Heat to be now


established, I should not venture, as yet, to describe its
establishment as an event in the history of the Inductive Sciences. It
is only at an interval of time after such events have taken place that
their history and character can be fully understood, so as to suggest
lessons in the Philosophy of Science.]

Atmological Theories.—Hypotheses of the relations of heat and air


almost necessarily involve a reference to the forces by which the
composition of bodies is produced, and thus cannot properly be
treated of, till we have surveyed the condition of chemical
knowledge. But we may say a few words on one such hypothesis; I
mean the hypothesis on the subject of the atmological laws of heat,
proposed by Laplace, in the twelfth Book of the Mécanique Céléste,
and published in 1823. 185 It will be recollected that the main laws of
phenomena for which we have to account, by means of such an
hypothesis, are the following:—

(1.) The law of Boyle and Mariotte, that the elasticity of an air
varies as its density. See Chap. iii., Sect. 1 of this Book.

(2.) The Law of Gay-Lussac and Dalton, that all airs expand
equally by heat. See Chap. ii. Sect. 1.

(3.) The production of heat by sudden compression. See Chap. ii.


Sect. 2.

(4.) Dalton’s principle of the mechanical mixture of airs. See Chap.


iii. Sect. 3.
(5.) The Law of expansion of solids and fluids by heat. See Chap.
ii. Sect. 1.

(6.) Changes of consistence by heat, and the doctrine of latent


heat. See Chap. ii. Sect. 3.

(7.) The Law of the expansive force of steam. See Chap. iii. Sect.
4.

Besides these, there are laws of which it is doubtful whether they


are or are not included in the preceding, as the low temperature of
the air in the higher parts of the atmosphere. (See Chap. iii. Sect. 5.)

Laplace’s hypothesis 71 is this:—that bodies consist of particles,


each of which gathers round it, by its attraction, a quantity of caloric:
that the particles of the bodies attract each other, besides attracting
the caloric, and that the particles of the caloric repel each other.
71 Méc. Cél. t. v. p. 89.

In gases, the particles of the bodies are so far removed, that their
mutual attraction is insensible, and the matter tends to expand by the
mutual repulsion of the caloric. He conceives this caloric to be
constantly radiating among the particles; the density of this internal
radiation is the temperature, and he proves that, on this supposition,
the elasticity of the air will be as the density, and as this temperature.
Hence follow the three first rules above stated. The same
suppositions lead to Dalton’s principle of mixtures (4), though without
involving his mode of conception; for Laplace says that whatever the
mutual action of two gases be, the whole pressure will be equal to
the sum of the separate pressures. 72 Expansion (5), and the
changes of consistence (6), are explained by supposing 73 that in
solids, the mutual attraction of the particles of the body is the
greatest force; in liquids, the attraction of the particles for the caloric;
in airs, the repulsion of 186 the caloric. But the doctrine of latent heat
again modifies 74 the hypothesis, and makes it necessary to include
latent heat in the calculation; yet there is not, as we might suppose
there would be if the theory were the true one, any confirmation of
the hypothesis resulting from the new class of laws thus referred to.
Nor does it appear that the hypothesis accounts for the relation
between the elasticity and the temperature of steam.
72 Ib. p. 110.

73 Ib. p. 92.

74 Méc. Cél. t. v. p. 93.

It will be observed that Laplace’s hypothesis goes entirely upon


the materiality of heat, and is inconsistent with any vibratory theory;
for, as Ampère remarks, “It is clear that if we admit heat to consist in
vibrations, it is a contradiction to attribute to heat (or caloric) a
repulsive force of the particles which would be a cause of vibration.”

An unfavorable judgment of Laplace’s Theory of Gases is


suggested by looking for that which, in speaking of Optics, was
mentioned as the great characteristic of a true theory; namely, that
the hypotheses, which were assumed in order to account for one
class of facts, are found to explain another class of a different
nature:—the consilience of inductions. Thus, in thermotics, the law of
an intensity of radiation proportional to the sine of the angle of the
ray with the surface, which is founded on direct experiments of
radiation, is found to be necessary in order to explain the tendency
of neighboring bodies to equality of temperature; and this leads to
the higher generalization, that heat is radiant from points below the
surface. But in the doctrine of the relation of heat to gases, as
delivered by Laplace, there is none of this unexpected confirmation;
and though he explains some of the leading laws, his assumptions
bear a large proportion to the laws explained. Thus, from the
assumption that the repulsion of gases arises from the mutual
repulsion of the particles of caloric, he finds that the pressure in any
gas is as the square of the density and of the quantity of caloric; 75
and from the assumption that the temperature is the internal
radiation, he finds that this temperature is as the density and the
square of the caloric. 76 Hence he obtains the law of Boyle and
Mariotte, and that of Dalton and Gay-Lussac. But this view of the
subject requires other assumptions when we come to latent heat;
and accordingly, he introduces, to express the latent heat, a new
quantity. 77 Yet this quantity produces no effect on his calculations,
nor does he apply his reasoning to any problem in which latent heat
is concerned.
75 P = 2 π h k ρ2c2 (1) p. 107.

76 q′ Π (a) = ρc2 (2) p. 108.

77 The quantity i, p. 113.

187 Without, then, deciding upon this theory, we may venture to


say that it is wanting in all the prominent and striking characteristics
which we have found in those great theories which we look upon as
clearly and indisputably established.

Conclusion.—We may observe, moreover, that heat has other


bearings and effects, which, as soon as they have been analysed
into numerical laws of phenomena, must be attended to in the
formation of thermotical theories. Chemistry will probably supply
many such; those which occur to us, we must examine hereafter. But
we may mention as examples of such, MM. De la Rive and Marcet’s
law, that the specific heat of all gases is the same; 78 and MM.
Dulong and Petit’s law, that single atoms of all simple bodies have
the same capacity for heat. 79 Though we have not yet said anything
of the relation of different gases, or explained the meaning of atoms
in the chemical sense, it will easily be conceived that these are very
general and important propositions.
78 Ann. Chim. xxxv. (1827.)

79 Ib. x. 397.

Thus the science of Thermotics, imperfect as it is, forms a highly-


instructive part of our survey; and is one of the cardinal points on
which the doors of those chambers of physical knowledge must turn
which hitherto have remained closed. For, on the one hand, this
science is related by strong analogies and dependencies to the most
complete portions of our knowledge, our mechanical doctrines and
optical theories; and on the other, it is connected with properties and
laws of a nature altogether different,—those of chemistry; properties
and laws depending upon a new system of notions and relations,
among which clear and substantial general principles are far more
difficult to lay hold of and with which the future progress of human
knowledge appears to be far more concerned. To these notions and
relations we must now proceed; but we shall find an intermediate
stage, in certain subjects which I shall call the Mechanico-chemical
Sciences; viz., those which have to do with Magnetism, Electricity,
and Galvanism.

~Additional material in the 3rd edition.~


B O O K XI.

THE MECHANICO-CHEMICAL SCIENCES.


HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY.
Parva metu primo: mox sese extollit in auras,
Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit.
Æn. iv. 176.

A timid breath at first, a transient touch,


How soon it swells from little into much!
Runs o’er the ground, and springs into the air,
And fills the tempest’s gloom, the lightning’s glare;
While denser darkness than the central storm
Conceals the secrets of its inward form.

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