"
The eminent professor was thus expressing the general opinion of his
contemporaries, but he certainly seemed to have felt in advance that
the new theory was about to penetrate more deeply into the inmost
nature of things. Three years previously, Rankine also had put forth
some very remarkable ideas the full meaning of which was not at first
well understood. He it was who comprehended the utility of employing a
more inclusive term, and invented the phrase energetics. He also
endeavoured to create a new doctrine of which rational mechanics
should be only a particular case; and he showed that it was possible
to abandon the ideas of atoms and central forces, and to construct a
more general system by substituting for the ordinary consideration of
forces that of the energy which exists in all bodies, partly in an
actual, partly in a potential state.
By giving more precision to the conceptions of Rankine, the physicists
of the end of the nineteenth century were brought to consider that in
all physical phenomena there occur apparitions and disappearances
which are balanced by various energies.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104