CORRELATION OF FORCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1243, 25 September 1875, Page 3

CORRELATION OF FORCES.

Creation or destruction of matter, increase or diminution of matter, lie beyond the domain of Science ; her domain is confined entirely to the changes of matter. Now, it is the doctrine of modern science that the same is true of force. Force seems often to be annihilated. Two cannon balls of equal size and velocity meet each other and fall motionless. The immense energy of these moving bodies sesms to pass out of existence. But not so ; it is changed into heat, and the exact amount of heat may be calculated ; moreover, an equal amount of heat maybe changed back again into an equal amount of momentum. Here, therefore, force is not lost, but is changed from a visible to an invisible form. Motion i 3 changed from bodily motion into molecular motion. Thus heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and mechanical force are transmutable into each other, back and forth ; but, amid all these changes, the amount of force remains unchanged. Force is incapable of destruction, except by the same power which created it. The domain of Science lies within the limits of these changes— creation and annihilation lie outside of her domain.

The mutual convertibility of forces into each other is called correlation of forces; the persistence of the same amount, amid all these portean forms, is called conservation of forces. The correlation of physical forces with each other and with chemical force is now universally acknowledged and somewhat clearly conceived, Thp correlation of vital force with these is not universally acknowledged, and, where acknowledged, ia only imperfectly conceived. In 1859 I published a paper in which I attempted to put the idea of correlation of vital force with chemical and physical forces in a more definite and scientific form. The views expressed in that paper have been generally adopted by physiologists. — Professor Le Conte.