Abstract
DR. RIABOUCHINSKY directs attention concisely in NATURE (July 29, p. 591) to an important point, which must have arrested the notice of readers of Lord Ray-leigh's weighty exposition and illustration of the scope of the method of dimensions, as an instrument of precision in the analysis of physical problems. The example under consideration was the cooling1 of a hot wire by a stream of air passing across it. The point is that temperature, although in ultimate analysis it must be expressible in terms of the three fundamental dynamical entities “mass, space, and time” can yet be in that problem considered effectively as a fourth independent entity, thus vastly increasing the information derivable from comparison of dimensions. In the formal analysis of mere diffusion or conduction this is clearly valid, for the dynamical aspect of temperature is not involved.
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L., J. The Principle of Similitude. Nature 95, 644 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095644a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095644a0
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