Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/340

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334
the mathematical principles
[Book II.

of this last hole, the same, very nearly, which the solution of the Problem requires. The space included between the two planes and the falling stream may be considered as the bottom of the vessel. But, to make the solution more simple and mathematical, it is better to take the lower plane alone for the bottom of the vessel, and to suppose that the water which flowed through the ice as through a funnel, and ran out of the vessel through the hole EF made in the lower plane, preserves its motion continually, and that the ice continues at rest. Therefore in what follows let ST be the diamter of a circular hole described from the centre Z, and let the stream run out of the vessel through that hole, when the water in the vessel is all fluid. And let EF be the diameter of the hole, which the stream, in falling through, exactly fills up, whether the water runs out of the vessel by that upper hole ST, or flows through the middle of the ice in the vessel, as through a funnel. And let the diameter of the upper hole ST be to the diameter of the lower EF as about 25 to 21, and let the perpendicular distance between the planes of the holes be equal to the diameter of the lesser hole EF. Then the velocity of the water downwards, in running out of the vessel through the hole ST, will be in that hole the same that a body may acquire by falling from half the height IZ; and the velocity of both the falling streams will be in the hole EF, the same which a body would acquire by falling from the whole height IG.

Case 2. If the hole EF be not in the middle of the bottom of the vessel, but in some other part thereof, the water will still run out with the same velocity as before, if the magnitude of the hole be the same. For though an heavy body takes a longer time in descending to the same depth, by an oblique line, than by a perpendicular line, yet in both cases it acquires in its descent the same velocity; as Galileo has demonstrated.

Case 3. The velocity of the water is the same when it runs out through a hole in the side of the vessel. For if the hole be small, so that the interval between the superficies AB and KL may vanish as to sense, and the stream of water horizontally issuing out may form a parabolic figure: from the latus rectum of this parabola may be collected, that the velocity of the effluent water is that which a body may acquire by falling the height IG or HG of the stagnant water in the vessel. For, by making an experiment, I found that if the height of the stagnant water above the hole were 20 inches, and the height of the hole above a plane parallel to the horizon were also 20 inches, a stream of water springing out from thence would fall upon the plane, at the distance of 37 inches, very nearly, from a perpendicular let fall upon that plane from the hole. For without resistance the stream would have fallen upon the plane at the distance of 40 inches, the latus rectum of the parabolic stream being 80 inches.

Case 4. If the effluent water tend upward, it will still issue forth with the same velocity. For the small stream of water springing upward; as-