Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

radiation from the cylinder, condenser, pipes, &c. But both these quantities can be estimated. When the amount is compared with that entering the cylinder in the steam, a difference is always found, which leaves a quantity of heat unaccounted for. When this quantity is compared with the work done by the engine in the same interval (which work can be measured as described on page 10), it is always found that for every 772 units of work a unit of heat has disappeared from the cylinder. The numerical relation between work and heat which is established in these two cases has been tested in many quite different ways; and, within the limits of experimental errors, always with the same numerical result. But equally definite quantitative relations are known to exist among all the other forms of force; and the manner in which these are convertible into each other has already been indicated, although want of space prevents full illustration of this part of the subject. It may, however, be seen that each form of force can be mediately or immediately converted into mechanical effect, hence each is expressible in terms of work. That is to say, we can assign to a unit of electricity, for example, a number expressing the work which it would do if entirely converted into work; and the same number also expresses the work which would be required to produce the unit of electricity. An ounce of hydrogen in combining with 8 oz. of oxygen produces a certain measurable quantity of heat. If that heat, say = H, 806were all converted into work, we now know that the work would = HJ. Hence we can express a definite chemical action in terms of work. The same is generally true of all physical forces, though in some cases, such as light, vital action, &c., the quantitative relations have not yet been definitely determined. Since, then, all the forces with which we are acquainted are expressible (though the exact relations of some have yet to be discovered) in terms of work, it is found of great advantage to consider the power of doing work as the common measure of doing all these. Thus, if we define energy as that which does, or that which is capable of doing, work, we have a term extremely convenient in the description of some aspects of our subject. Thus we can now speak of the energies of nature, instead of the forces. And all forces, active or passive, may be summed up in one word—energy. And, further, the great discovery of the conservation of forces under definite equivalents, may be summed up very briefly in this statement—THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY IN THE UNIVERSE IS CONSTANT. To make this statement clear requires that a distinction between two forms of every kind of energy be pointed out. To recur to the example before imagined: if you carry the 1 lb. weight up the Monument, and deposit it on the ledge at the top, it might lie there for a thousand years before it was made to give back the work you had performed upon it. That work has been, in a manner, stored up by the position you have given to your weight. Now, in taking up the weight, you expended energy—you really performed work: that is an instance of energy in operation, and may be termed “actual energy.” In what form does the energy exist during the thousand years we may suppose your weight to lie at the top of the Monument? It is ready to yield up your work again at any moment it is permitted to descend, and it possesses therefore during the whole period a potential energy equal in amount to the actual energy you bestowed upon it. A similar distinction between actual and potential energy exists with regard to every form of force. If by any means you separate an atom of carbon from an atom of oxygen, you exert actual energy. The process is analogous to carrying up the weight. The atoms when separated possess potential energy,—they can rush together again, like the weight to the earth, and in doing so will give out the work which was expended on their separation. A parallel illustration might be drawn from electrical force. A typical example of the storing up of energy is furnished by a crossbow. The moment a man begins to bend the bow he is doing work, because he pulls the string in opposition to the bow’s resistance to a change in its form; and it is plain that the amount of energy thus expended is measurable. Suppose, now, the bow has been bent and the string caught in the notch, from which it is released by drawing the trigger when the discharge of the bow is desired. The bow may be retained for an indefinite period in the bent condition, and in this state it possesses, in the form of potential energy, all the work which has been expended in bending it, and which it will, in fact, give out, in some way or other, whenever the trigger is drawn. To fix our ideas, let us suppose that to draw the string over the notch required a pull of 50 lbs. over a space of 6 in.; that is equivalent to 50 × ½ = 25 units of work. Now let the bow be used to shoot an arrow weighing ¼ lb. vertically upwards. The height in feet to which the arrow will rise multiplied into its weight in pounds will be the work done upon it by the bow. Now, we say that experiment proves that in the case supposed the arrow would rise just 100 ft., so that the work done by the 807bow (¼ × 100 = 25) would be precisely that done upon it. For the sake of simplicity, we keep this illustration free from the mention of interfering causes, which have to be considered and allowed for when the matter is put to the real test of quantitative experiment. The instance of the crossbow brings into notice a highly instructive circumstance, which is this: the bow, which it may have taken the strength of a Hercules to bend, will shoot its bolt by the mere touch of a child on the trigger. In the same way, when a man fires a gun, he merely permits the potential energy contained in the charge to convert itself into actual, or kinetic, energy. The real source of the energy, in the case of the child discharging the crossbow, is the muscular power of the man who drew it; the real source of the energy in exploding gunpowder is the separation of carbon atoms from oxygen atoms, and that has been done by the sun’s rays, as truly as the string was pulled away from the bow by muscular power. If we turn our attention to nitro-glycerine or to nitro-cellulose, we can, by following the chemical actions giving rise to these substances, in like manner trace their energies to our great luminary. The unstable union by which oxygen and nitrogen atoms are locked up in the solid and liquid forms of nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine is also the work of the sun; for nitrogen acids, or rather nitrates, are produced naturally under certain electrical and other conditions of the atmosphere, which are due, directly or indirectly, to the sun’s action; and they cannot be formed artificially, except by imitating the natural conditions, as by passing electric sparks through air, &c. It will now be understood, as regards the wonderful relations between animal and vegetable life, which have already been alluded to more than once, how the sun, by expending actual energy, separates atoms of carbon from atoms of oxygen in the leaves of plants, and confers upon these a position of advantage, i.e., potential energy; and how animals, absorbing the separated carbon in the form of food, and inhaling the separated oxygen in the air they breathe, cause the conversion of the potential into actual energy, which appears in the heat, movements, and vital functions of the animal body. In coal we have the energy which plants absorbed from the sun ages ago, stored up in a potential form. The carbon atoms are ready to rush into union with oxygen atoms, and convert their energy of position into the energies developed by chemical action, viz., heat, light, &c. Energy is thus constantly shifting its form from actual to potential, and vice versâ, and exhibiting itself under the various transformations of force, as when sun-force changes to chemical action, chemical action to heat, heat to electricity, &c. Energy is, indeed, the real modern Proteus—constantly assuming different shapes, difficult to grasp if not held in fetters; now taking on the form of a lion, now of a flame of fire, a whirlwind, a rushing stream. As sober, literal matter of fact we catch glimpses of energy under these very forms. The greatest discovery of the age has, as already indicated, immediate and important practical bearings. The amount of thought which, even in the present day, is devoted by unscientific mechanics to the old problem of perpetual motion is far greater than is generally supposed. The principle of the conservation of energy shows that this is an impossibility; that the inventor who seeks to create force might just as well try to create matter; that the production of a perpetually moving self-sustaining machine is as far removed from human power as the bringing into existence of a new planet. In force, as in matter, the law is inexorable—ex nihilo nihil fit. Again, knowing the definite amount of energy obtainable from the combustion 808of a pound of coal, we can compare the amount we actually procure from it in our steam engines with this theoretical quantity as the limit towards which our improvements should bring us continually nearer, but which we can never exceed, or, indeed, even reach. The schemers of perpetual motion are not the only class of speculators who pursue objects which are incompatible with our principle. There are many who seek to accomplish desirable ends by inadequate means: who, for example, are aiming perhaps to accomplish the reduction of ores by a quantity of fuel less than that mechanically equivalent to the work, or who conceive that by adding to coal some substance which itself is unchanged, an indefinitely greater amount of heat may be liberated by the combustion. Enough has been said to show that the energies of animal life can be traced to the sun as their source. The sun builds up the plant, separating oxygen from carbon. The animal—directly or mediately by devouring other animals—takes the carbonaceous matter of the plant, and reunites it with oxygen. In the plant the sun winds up the spring which gives life to the animal mechanism; for the winding-up of a spring and the separation of the atoms having chemical affinities are alike instances of supplying potential energy. In the animal there is a running-down of the potential into actual energy. It is plain also that of the total energy radiated from the sun in every direction, the earth receives but a very small part (12300000000). By far the larger part is diffused into space, where, for all such purposes as those with which we are concerned, it is lost. The heat which the sun sends out in a year is calculated to be equal to that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of coal 17 miles thick over the whole surface of the luminary. Is the sun, then, a flaming fire? By no means. Combustion is not possible at its temperature; and as we know the substances which enter into its composition are the same as those we find in the earth, we know that the chemical energies of such substances could not supply the sun’s expenditure. Passing over as unsatisfactory an explanation which might occur to some minds—namely, that the sun was created hot at the beginning, and has so continued—there are two theories which attempt