Abstract
OF this elaborate work it is enough to say that it is based on “The New Principles of Natural Philosophy.” These principles we sketched (June 21, 1883) in an article which, as his mode of acknowledgment showed, was by no means satisfactory to our Author. That Vis Inertiæ was entirely misunderstood by Newton, and that unresisted motion ultimately comes to rest, are among the chief foundations of this work. That a terrestrial globe whose frame is carried round through a portion of a curve, and then suddenly stopped, will rotate in consequence, is conceivable: but we should try to explain the fact by bad centering, or some such cause: certainly not by the assumption that, during the curvilinear motion, one part of the equator had necessarily a greater linear velocity than the opposite part. Our Author does not seem to be acquainted with the most elementary properties of the kind of motion called Translation ! But this is merely, on his part, the most recent revival of Jelinger Symonsism:—for it assumes the fundamental tenet of that peculiar heresy; viz. that a body, which revolves round a centre, is not rotating if it turn always the same side to the centre. It is needless to say more on this melancholy waste of time, trouble, and ready money (the latter especially); on the part of an author who has been complimented by a reviewer of one of his other works as having “a familiar acquaintance with questions of finance.” See Advertisement appended to the present volume.
The Ocean, &c.
By W. L. Jordan. Second Edition. (London: Longmans, 1885.)
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T., P. [Book Reviews]. Nature 33, 28 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/033028b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/033028b0