Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/346

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340
the mathematical principles
[Book II.

equal to the weight of a cylinder whose base is that little circle, and its altitude half the altitude IG, from which the cylinder must fall to acquire the velocity of the ascending circle; and with this velocity the cylinder in the time of its fall will describe four times its length. But the resistance of the cylinder moving forward with this velocity in the direction of its length is the same with the resistance of the little circle (by Lem. IV), and is therefore nearly equal to the force by which its motion may be generated while it describes four times its length.

If the length of the cylinder be augmented or diminished, its motion, and the time in which it describes four times its length, will be augmented or diminished in the same ratio, and therefore the force by which the motion so increased or diminished, may be destroyed or generated, will continue the same; because the time is increased or diminished in the same proportion; and therefore that force remains still equal to the resistance of the cylinder, because (by Lem. IV) that resistance will also remain the same.

If the density of the cylinder be augmented or diminished, its motion, and the force by which its motion may be generated or destroyed in the same time, will be augmented or diminished in the same ratio. Therefore the resistance of any cylinder whatsoever will be to the force by which its whole motion may be generated or destroyed, in the time during which it moves four times its length, as the density of the medium to the density of the cylinder, nearly.   Q.E.D.

A fluid must be compressed to become continued; it must be continued and non-elastic, that all the pressure arising from its compression may be propagated in an instant; and so, acting equally upon all parts of the body moved, may produce no change of the resistance. The pressure arising from the motion of the body is spent in generating a motion in the parts of the fluid, and this creates the resistance. But the pressure arising from the compression of the fluid, be it ever so forcible, if it be propagated in an instant, generates no motion in the parts of a continued fluid, produces no change at all of motion therein; and therefore neither augments nor lessens the resistance. This is certain, that the action of the fluid arising from the compression cannot be stronger on the hinder parts of the body moved than on its fore parts, and therefore cannot lessen the resistance described in this proposition. And if its propagation be infinitely swifter than the motion of the body pressed, it will not be stronger on the fore parts than on the hinder parts. But that action will be infinitely swifter, and propagated in an instant, if the fluid be continued and non-elastic.

Cor. 1. The resistances, made to cylinders going uniformly forward in the direction of their lengths through continued infinite mediums are in a