Note on the Application of Electro-Magnetism asa Mechanical Power; by I. D. Botto, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal University of Turin.
From the Bibliothèque Universelle, &c., vol. lvi. Geneva, (1834, vol. ii. p. 312. July.)
The remarkable energy with which the magnetic action is developed in soft iron by induction from electricity in motion is well known.
The possibility of the application of this new power to machines possessing some interest, I have decided on publishing the results which I have obtained relating to this subject[1].
The mechanism which I have employed consists first of a lever put in motion (in the manner of a metronome) by the alternating action of two fixed electro-magnetic cylinders exerted on a third moveable cylinder connected with the lower arm of the lever, the upper arm of which maintains a metallic wheel, serving in the ordinary way as a regulator, in a continuous gyratory motion.
The apparatus was so disposed, that, the axes of the three cylinders being perfectly equal and situated in the same vertical plane perpendicular to the axis of motion, the oscillating cylinder placed itself by one of its extremities alternately in contact with and in the direction of, each of the two other cylinders, stationed at the limits of its excursions; and each time, at that very instant, the direction of the magnetizing current in its spiral was changed, the remainder of the circuit preserving the same direction, so as to produce poles of the same name in the fixed cylinders, at the two extremities facing the moveable cylinder. The change of direction which has just been mentioned is obtained by means of the known mechanism of the bascule, the communications of which are interchanged by the motion of the machine itself.
It is evident that from this arrangement the middle cylinder must undergo corresponding alternations of attraction and repulsion, by the effect of which the apparatus is set in motion, as it were by itself, and maintains itself in action by the œconomy of the magnetic forces which animate it, and which are produced by the electric currents.
I endeavoured to operate without the spiral of the middle cylinder, and by causing the two fixed cylinders magnetized alternately to act
- ↑ I ought to state, that the hope of giving a greater extension to my observations, and also the necessity of absenting myself from Turin, have caused me to defer the publication of the facts which I announce, although I should have done so at the end of June. But I have been obliged to decide respecting it, having seen in the last number of the Piedmontese Gazette, that M. Jacobi of Königsberg has succeeded in obtaining a phænomenon of continuous motion by the intervention only of the electro-magnetic power.
