This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 Excerpt: ...of gravitation, when removed to this new distance, was rapidly computed. In like manner the distance through which the moon must actually fall was also obtained by using the new value of the earth's diameter. It would be impossible to form any just idea of the intense emotions which must have agitated the mind of the ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 Excerpt: ...of gravitation, when removed to this new distance, was rapidly computed. In like manner the distance through which the moon must actually fall was also obtained by using the new value of the earth's diameter. It would be impossible to form any just idea of the intense emotions which must have agitated the mind of the English philosopher while engaged in bringing these last computations to a close. Upon a comparison of the results now reached there hung consequences of incalculable value. No less than nineteen years of earnest study, of profound thought, and of the most laborious investigation, had already been exhausted on this grand problem, and now within a few minutes the fate of the theory and the fame of the astronomer were to be for ever fixed. No wonder, then, that we are told that even the giant intellect of Newton reeled and staggered under the tremendous excitement of the moment; and seeing that the figures were so shaping themselves as inevitably to destroy the discrepancy which had so long existed, overcome by his emotions, Newton was compelled to ask the assistance of a friend to finish the numerical computation, and when completed it was found that the space through which the moon did fall in a unit of time was identical with the space through which she ought to fall, in case her movements were controlled by a power lodged in the earth's centre, and decreasing in energy as the square of the distance at which it operated was increased. L Here was presented the first positive proof of the prevalence of that universal law of mutual attraction which energizes every particle of ponderable matter existing in the universe. The earth's power of attraction was thus shown to exert itself according to a fixed law, in deflecting the moon from the rectilin...
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