Abstract
WILL you be so good as to allow me to draw the attention of your correspondent, Mr. W. Mattieu Williams, to what appears to be an oversight in his letter on “The Diathermacy of Flame,” published in your number of Oct. 17 last. Near the bottom of col. 1, page 506, he says, “My flames were thus maintained at a constant mean distance from the thermometer;” and, farther on, “Here, then, is a serious discrepancy. I get an increase of 4° by the first addition of two flames, and by eight such additional pairs obtain an increase of 34° instead of the 32° due to theoretical diathermacy,” &c. The explanation of the discrepancy seems to be that the radiant heat from a flame, like that from any other body, varies as the inverse square of the distance, and therefore the total effect is propertional 1/d2 + 1/d′2 + 1/d′2 + &c., not 1/d + 1/d′ + 1/d′ + &c., where d, d′, &c., are the distances of the flames from the thermometer; in which latter case the order of lighting the jets would answer the desired object.
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ROSSE Diathermacy of Flame. Nature 7, 28 (1872). https://doi.org/10.1038/007028a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007028a0
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