The Energy System of Matter: a Deduction From Terrestrial Energy Phenomena

PART I. General Statement

GENERAL STATEMENT

1. ADVANTAGES OF GENERAL VIEW OF NATURAL OPERATIONS 7

2. SEPARATE MASS IN SPACE 8

3. ADVENT OF ENERGY--DISTORTIONAL EFFECTS 9

4. THE GRAVITATION FIELD 11

5. LIMITS OF ROTATIONAL ENERGY--DISRUPTIONAL PHENOMENA 13

6. PASSIVE FUNCTION AND GENERAL NATURE OF GRAVITATION FIELD 17

7. LIMIT OF GRAVITATION TRANSFORMATION 18

8. INTERACTIONS OF TWO PLANETARY BODIES--EQUILIBRIUM PHENOMENA 19

9. AXIAL ENERGY--SECONDARY PROCESSES 22

10. MECHANISM OF ENERGY RETURN 27

11. REVIEW OF COSMICAL SYSTEM--GENERAL FUNCTION OF ENERGY 29

12. REVIEW OF COSMICAL SYSTEM--NATURAL CONDITIONS 31

PART II. Principles of Inception

PRINCIPLES OF INCEPTION

13. ILLUSTRATIVE SECONDARY PROCESSES 34

14. INCEPTING ENERGY INFLUENCES 40

15. COHESION AS AN INCEPTING INFLUENCE 45

16. TERRESTRIAL GRAVITATION AS AN INCEPTING INFLUENCE 48

17. THE GRAVITATION FIELD 51

18. THE THERMAL FIELD 54

19. THE LUMINOUS FIELD 58

20. TRANSFORMATIONS--UPWARD MOVEMENT OF A MASS AGAINST GRAVITY 62

21. TRANSFORMATIONS--THE SIMPLE PENDULUM 67

22. STATICAL ENERGY CONDITIONS 68

23. TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE MOVING PENDULUM--ENERGY OF MOTION TO ENERGY OF POSITION AND VICE VERSA 72

24. TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE MOVING PENDULUM--FRICTIONAL TRANSFORMATION AT THE BEARING SURFACES 77

25. STABILITY OF ENERGY SYSTEMS 79

26. THE PENDULUM AS A CONSERVATIVE SYSTEM 81

27. SOME PHENOMENA OF TRANSMISSION PROCESSES--TRANSMISSION OF HEAT ENERGY BY SOLID MATERIAL 84

28. SOME PHENOMENA OF TRANSMISSION PROCESSES--TRANSMISSION BY FLEXIBLE BAND OR CORD 89

29. SOME PHENOMENA OF TRANSMISSION PROCESSES--TRANSMISSION OF ENERGY TO AIR MASSES 92

30. ENERGY MACHINES AND ENERGY TRANSMISSION 95

31. IDENTIFICATION OF FORMS OF ENERGY 107

32. COMPLETE SECONDARY CYCLICAL OPERATION 114

PART III. Terrestrial Conditions

TERRESTRIAL CONDITIONS

33. GASEOUS EXPANSION 118

34. GRAVITATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM OF GASES 124

35. TOTAL ENERGY OF GASEOUS SUBSTANCES 131

36. COMPARATIVE ALTITUDES OF PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES 135

37. REACTIONS OF COMPOSITE ATMOSPHERE 139

38. DESCRIPTION OF TERRESTRIAL CASE 143

39. RELATIVE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF ATMOSPHERIC CONSTITUENTS 150

40. TRANSMISSION OF ENERGY FROM AQUEOUS VAPOUR TO AIR MASSES 153

41. TERRESTRIAL ENERGY RETURN 160

42. EXPERIMENTAL ANALOGY AND DEMONSTRATION OF THE GENERAL MECHANISM OF ENERGY TRANSFORMATION AND RETURN IN THE ATMOSPHERIC CYCLE 170

43. APPLICATION OF PENDULUM PRINCIPLES 181

44. EXTENSION OF PENDULUM PRINCIPLES TO TERRESTRIAL PHENOMENA 188

45. CONCLUDING REVIEW OF TERRESTRIAL CONDITIONS--EFFECTS OF INFLUX OF ENERGY 192

THE ENERGY SYSTEM OF MATTER

INTRODUCTION

The main principles on which the present work is founded were broadly outlined in the author's Terrestrial Energy in 1883, and also in a later paper in 1892.

The views then expressed have since been amply verified by the course of events. In the march of progress, the forward strides of science have been of gigantic proportions. Its triumphs, however, have been in the realm, not of speculation or faith, but of experiment and fact. While, on the one hand, the careful and systematic examination and co-ordination of experimental facts has ever been leading to results of real practical value, on the other, the task of the theorists, in their efforts to explain phenomena on speculative grounds, has become increasingly severe, and the results obtained have been decreasingly satisfactory. Day by day it becomes more evident that not one of the many existing theories is adequate to the explanation of the known phenomena: but, in spite of this obvious fact, attempts are still constantly being made, even by most eminent men, to rule the results of experimental science into line with this or that accepted theory. The contradictions are many and glaring, but speculative methods are still rampant. They have become the fashion, or rather the fetish, of modern science. It would seem that no experimental result can be of any value until it is deductively accommodated to some preconceived hypothesis, until it is embodied and under the sway of what is practically scientific dogma. These methods have permeated all branches of science more or less, but in no sphere has the tendency to indulge in speculation been more pronounced than in that which deals with energetics. In no sphere, also, have the consequences of such indulgence been more disastrous. For the most part, the current conceptions of energy processes are crude, fanciful, and inconsistent with Nature. They require for their support--in fact, for their very existence--the acceptance of equally fantastic conceptions of mythical substances or ethereal media of whose real existence there is absolutely no experimental evidence. On the assumed properties or motions of such media are based the many inconsistent and useless attempts to explain phenomena. But, as already pointed out, Nature has unmistakably indicated the true path of progress to be that of experimental investigation. In the use of this method only phenomena can be employed, and any hypothesis which may be formulated as the result of research on these lines is of scientific value only in so far as it is the correct expression of the actual facts observed. By this method of holding close to Nature reliable working hypotheses can, if necessary, be formed, and real progress made. It is undeniably the method of true science.

In recent years much attention has been devoted to certain speculative theories with respect to the origin and ultimate nature of matter and energy. Such hypotheses, emanating as they do from prominent workers, and fostered by the inherent imaginative tendency of the human mind, have gained considerable standing. But it is surely unnecessary to point out that all questions relating to origins are essentially outside the pale of true science. Any hypotheses which may be thus formulated have not the support of experimental facts in their conclusions; they belong rather to the realm of speculative philosophy than to that of science. In the total absence of confirmatory phenomena, such theories can, at best, only be regarded as plausible speculations, to be accepted, it may be, without argument, and ranking in interest in the order of their plausibility.

Of modern research into the ultimate constitution of matter little requires to be said. It is largely founded on certain radio-active and electrical phenomena which, in themselves, contribute little information. But aided by speculative methods and the use of preconceived ethereal hypotheses, various elaborate theories have been formulated, explaining matter and its properties entirely in terms of ethereal motions. Such conceptions in their proper sphere--namely, that of metaphysics--would be no doubt of interest, but when advanced as a scientific proposition or solution they border on the ridiculous. In the absence of phenomena bearing on the subject, it would seem that the last resort of the modern scientist lies in terminology. To the average seeker after truth, however, the term "matter," as applied to the material world, will still convey as much meaning as the more elaborate scientific definitions.

It is not the purpose of this work to add another thread to the already tangled skein of scientific theory. It is written, rather, with the conviction, that it is impossible ever to get really behind or beyond phenomena; in the belief that the complete description of any natural process is simply the complete description of the associated phenomena, which may always be observed and co-ordinated but never ultimately explained. Phenomena must ever be accepted simply as phenomena--as the inscrutable manifestations of Nature. By induction from phenomena it is indeed possible to rise to working hypotheses, and thence, it may be, to general conceptions of Nature's order, and as already pointed out, it is to this method, of accepting phenomena, and of reasoning only from experimental facts, that all the advances of modern science are due. On the other hand, it is the neglect of this method--the departure, as it were, from Nature--which has led to the introduction into the scientific thought of the day of the various ethereal media with their extreme and contradictory properties. The use of such devices really amounts to an admission of direct ignorance of phenomena. They are, in reality, an attempt to explain natural operations by a highly artificial method, and, having no basis in fact, their whole tendency is to proceed, in ever-increasing degree, from one absurdity to another.

It is quite possible to gain a perfectly true and an absolutely reliable knowledge of the properties of matter and energy, and the part which each plays, without resorting to speculative aids. All that is required is simply accurate and complete observation at first hand. The field of research is wide; all Nature forms the laboratory. By this method every result achieved may be tested and verified, not by its concurrence with any approved theory, however plausible, but by direct reference to phenomena. The verdict of Nature will be the final judgment on every scheme.

It is on these principles, allied with the great generalisations with respect to the conservation of matter and energy, that this work is founded. As the result of a long, varied, and intimate acquaintance with Nature, and much experimental research in many spheres, the author has reached the conclusion, already foreshadowed in Terrestrial Energy, that the great principle of energy conservation is true, not only in the universal and generally accepted sense, but also in a particular sense with respect to all really separate bodies, such as planetary masses in space. Each of these bodies, therefore, forms within itself a completely conservative energy system. This conclusion obviously involves the complete denial of the transmission of energy in any form across interplanetary space, and the author, in this volume, now seeks to verify the conclusion by the direct experimental evidence of terrestrial phenomena.

Continue reading The Energy System of Matter: a Deduction From Terrestrial Energy Phenomena free in the Wunder reader →