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2. On the Law of Inertia; the Principle of Chronometry; and the Principle of Absolute Clinural Rest, and of Absolute Rotation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

James Thomson
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Extract

There is no distinction known to men among states of existence of a body which can give reason for any one state being regarded as a state of absolute rest in space, and any other being regarded as a state of uniform rectilinear motion. Men have no means of knowing, nor even of imagining, any one length rather than any other, as being the distance between the place occupied by the centre of a ball at present, and the place that was occupied by that centre at any past instant; nor of knowing or imagining any one direction, rather than any other, as being the direction of the straight line from the former place to the new place, if the ball is supposed to have been moving in space. The point of space that was occupied by the centre of the ball at any specifiod past moment is utterly lost to us as soon as that moment is past, or as soon as the centre has moved out of that point, having left no trace recognisable by us of its past place in the universe of space.

Type
Proceedings 1882-83
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 12 , 1884 , pp. 568 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1884

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References

note * page 569 The word clinural is to be understood as introduced for conveying precisely one out of the various conflicting meanings of the word directional. All straight lines which are mutually parallel are, in this amended mode of nomenclature, said to be in one same clinure. In connection with this, it may be convenient here to mention that all parallel planes are, in like manner, said to be in one same posure.

note * page 575 Postscript Note, May 1884.– On the evening of the reading of the paper (March 3, 1884), just after the close of the meeting of the Society, the author inquired of Professor Tait whether he could see how the problem referred to here in the paper as being perhaps extremely difficult, could be solved. Professor Tait replied that he could solve it very briefly by use of quaternions. The author, not being at all acquainted with quaternions, has since seen his way clearly to the solution by an easy method of mechanical adaptations. The mechanical method is merely for intellectual use, not for practical application. The ideal mechanism can serve as an instrument for use in reasoning, though friction, and elasticity of materials, &c., might render it incapable of complete practical realisation.