Abstract
IV. § 25. ANOTHER decisive demonstration that the doctrine of discontinuity is very far from an approximation to the truth, is afforded, in an exceedingly interesting and instructive manner, by Dines' observations of the pressures on the two sides of a disk held at right angles to a relative wind of 60 statute miles per hour (88 ft. per sec.), produced by carrying it round at the end of the revolving arm of his machine. The observations were described in a communication to the Royal Meteorological Society in May 1890. In his paper of June of the same year, in the Royal Society Proceedings already referred to, he states the results, which are, that at the middle of the front side an augmentation of pressure, and at the middle of the rear side a diminution of pressure, measured respectively by 1˙82 i and ˙89 i of water, were found. These correspond to heads of air, of density 1/800 of that of water, equal respectively to and feet. The former is in almost exact accordance with rigorous mathematical theory for an inviscid incompressible fluid; which gives 88264˙4, or 122½ feet for the depth corresponding to the pressure at the water-shed point or points, of a solid of any shape moving through it at the rate of 88 feet per second. The latter shows that there is a “suction” at the centre of the rear side very nearly equal to half the augmentation of pressure on the front; instead of there being neither suction nor augmented pressure as taught in the doctrine of discontinuity !
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
KELVIN On the Doctrine of Discontinuity of Fluid Motion, in Connection with the Resistance against a Solid Moving through a Fluid1. Nature 50, 597–598 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050597a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050597a0