LogoforMountainManGraphics,Australia

... from the Manuals of Elementary Science ...

MATTERandMOTION

by

J. CLERK MAXWELL

Chapter 3 - On Force

Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995

CONTENTS

Chapter 3 ... ON FORCE

Article 36 ... Kinematics and Kinetics
Article 37 ... Mutual Action between Two Bodies - STRESS
Article 38 ... External Force
Article 39 ... Different Aspects of the Same Phenomenon
Article 40 ... Newtons's Laws of Motion
Article 41 ... The First Law of Motion
Article 42 ... On the Equilibrium of Forces
Article 43 ... Definition of Equal Times
Article 44 ... The Second Law of Motion
Article 45 ... Definition of Equal Masses and Equal Forces
Article 46 ... Measurement of Mass
Article 47 ... Numerical Measurement of Force
Article 48 ... Simultaneaous Action of Force upon a Body
Article 49 ... On Impulse
Article 50 ... Relation between Force and Mass
Article 51 ... On Momentum
Article 52 ... Statement of the Second Law of Motion in Terms of Impulse and Momentum
Article 53 ... Addition of Forces
Article 54 ... The Third Law of Motion
Article 55 ... Action and Reaction are the Partial Espects of a Stress
Article 56 ... Attraction and Repulsion
Article 57 ... The Third Law True of Action at a Distance
Article 58 ... Newton's Proof not Experimental

[INDEX to all Chapters][Contents]

Article 57 - The Third Law True of Action at a Distance

The fact that a magnet draws iron towards it was noticed by the ancients, but no attention was paid to the force with which the iron attracts the magnet. Newton, however, by placing the magnet in one vessel and the iron in another, and floating both vessels in water so as to touch each other, showed experimentally that as no neither vessel was able to propel the other along with itself through the water, the attraction of the iron on the magnet must be equal and opposite to that of the magnet on the iron, both being equal to the pressure between the two vehicles.

Having given this experimental illustration Newton goes on to point out the consequences of denying the truth of this law. For instance, if the attraction of any part of the earth, say a mountain, upon the remainder of the earth were greater or less than the that of the remainder of the eart upon the mountain, there would be a residual force, acting upon the system of the earth and the mountain as a whole, which would cause it to move off, with an ever increasing velocity, through infinite space.

[Contents]

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LogoforMountainManGraphics,Australia

... from the Manuals of Elementary Science ...

MATTERandMOTION

by

J. CLERK MAXWELL

Chapter 3 - On Force

Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995