The Newtonian System of Philosophy: Explained by Familiar Objects, in an Entertaining Manner, for the Use of Young Persons

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J. Walker; J. Harris; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; Lackington, Allen, and Company; and Darton, Harvey, and Darton, 1812 - Physics - 124 pages
 

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Page 20 - Graeco-Egyptian mathematician and geographer who believed that the earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun and planets revolved around it.
Page 6 - Gravity, my dear friends, is that universal disposition of matter which inclines or carries the lesser part towards the centre of the greater part; which is called weight or gravitation in the lesser body, but attraction in the greater, because it draws, as it were, the lesser body to it. Thus all bodies on or near the earth's surface have a tendency, or seeming inclination, to descend towards its middle part or...
Page 76 - ... part opposite to it on the contrary side, being least attracted, is also higher than the rest. And these two opposite rises of the surface of the water in the great ocean, following the motion of the moon from east to west, and striking against the large coasts of the continents that lie in...
Page 72 - ... happened within a few years) then were the neighbouring fields burnt up, and the highways made dangerous to travellers. "A mountain in Java, not far from the. town of Panacura, in the year 1586, was shattered to pieces by a violent eruption of glowing sulphur (though it had never burnt before) ; whereby (as it was reported) ten thousand people perished in the under-land fields.
Page 60 - But besides the great similarity existing between lightning and electricity, what fully proves them to be the same is, that the matter of lightning may be actually brought down from the clouds by means of...
Page 61 - ... above the clouds, where they ferment, and, taking fire, the explosion of one portion kindles the next, and the flashes succeed one another till all the vapour is set on fire.
Page 117 - ... that is conformable to it. Knowledge, which is the highest degree of the speculative faculties, consists in the perception of the truth of affirmative or negative propositions; and this perception is either immediate or mediate.
Page 6 - ... lesser part towards the centre of the greater part; which is called weight or gravitation in the lesser body, but attraction in the greater, because it draws, as it were, the lesser body to it. Thus all bodies on or near the earth's surface have a tendency, or seeming inclination, to descend towards its middle part or centre; and but for this principle in nature, the earth (considering its form and situation in the universe) could not subsist as it is: for we all...
Page 26 - An eclipse of the sun never happens but at a new moon, nor one of the moon but when she is at the full.
Page 35 - ... surface of the solid earth that we walk on, to a good distance above us; first, if we consider that a column of air of any given diameter is equiponderant to a column of quicksilver of between twenty-nine and thirty inches height. Now, quicksilver being near fourteen times heavier than water, if air was as heavy as water, the atmosphere would be about fourteen times higher than the column of quicksilver, ie, about thirty-five feet. Secondly, if we consider that air is 1000 times lighter than...

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