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XII. On gravitation and the conservation of force

Ernst Brücke

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London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 15:98, 81-90, DOI:
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 THE

LONDON, EDINBURGH AND DUBLIN

PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE
AND

J O U R N A L OF S C I E N C E .

[FOURTH SERIES.]

FEBRUARY 1858.

XII. On Gravitation and the Conservation of Force. By EaNs~

BRUeK~, Member of the Academy of Vienna, and Professor of
Phusiology in the Universily*.

O N gave
the 27th of February of the present year (1857) Faraday
a lecture in the Royal Institution% iu which he
sought to prove that our usual conception of the lnree of gravity
is not in harmony wi~h the principle of the conservation of
force. In accordance with this conceptions he defined gravity
as 'Ca simple attractive force exerted between any two or all the
particles or masses of matte5 at every sensible distance, but with
a strength varying inversely as the square of the distance." He
draws attention to the eircamstance that this definition presup-
poses an actio in distans, a point which Newton himself found a
source of difficulty, and on which, in his third letter to Bentley,
he expresses himself in the following manner : - -
" T h a t gravity should be innate~ inherent and essential to mat-
ter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through
a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through
which their action and force may be conveyed from one to the
other, is to me so great au absurdity that I believe no man who
has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can
ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting con-
atantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be mate-
rial or immaterial I have left Lothe consideration of my readers."
Faraday shows, further, that as two particles are separated
from each other, their mutual attraction diminishes. This means
nothing else than that force is destroyed. When two particles
are brought more closely together, their mutual attraction aug-
* Fromthe Sitzungs-BerichtederMathem.Natur.Wiss. Classef~r1857.
t Our continental brethren often confound the Royal Societyand the
Royal Institution.--Ev.
Phil, Mug. S. 4. Vol. 15,No. 98. Feb. 1858, G
82 Pro£. Brlicke on Gravitation and
ments, and this can only mean that force is generated. Both
results are inconsistent with the law of the Conservation of Force.
If we imagine a particle isolated and without gravitating force,
and afterwards introduce another, an attractive force is supposed
to be set up on both sides, and thus again, aeeording to the
usual conception, we should have a creation of force.
Furthel; if we conceive the particle B to be separated from
the particle A for an infinite distance, the attractive force is
thereby infinitely diminished ; it is, in fact, as if B in respect to
A were actually annihilated. The same reasoning may be ap-
plied to several particles. When a body approaches another by
gravitating motion, in virtue of the vis inerti~e a quantity of me-
chanical force is accumulated, and still the vis attractionis has
not diminished but augmented. If, however, by the application
of an external force the body be removed in the opposite direc-
tion, there is no force stored up by the act, but, on the contrary,
the vis attractionis is, in consequence of the greater distance,
diminished. Hence Faraday considers that our present no~ions
as to the cause of gravity cannot be in harmony with the law of
the conservation of force, as long as it is not shown whence the
force generated is derived, and whither the force lost has disap-
peared. He does not doubt the general applicability of the
principle of conservation, but he believes that in our definition of
gravity we only describe one exercise of that power, and that this
gives an incomplete idea of the nature of the force as a whole.
It is a long time since such a far-reaching physical question
has been touched upon wholly without the aid of mathematical
apparatus--without the assistance of those wonder-working sym-
bols whose brief rhetoric speaks more convincingly to the mind
than the tongue of Cicero or Demosthenes. When, however,
the first natural philosopher in the world--when Faraday opens
the discussion thus, it is assuredly a sign that the time has come
when the question may be so treated.
If I venture to take part in this discussion, it is not because
I feel myself competent to meet that great man upon his own
field, but because the subject to which I devote myself, that is,
physiology, causes me perhaps to pay attention to things which
may have been further from the course of thought of the English
philosopher. Habitually compelled to direct my eye upon the
inner man, I may perhaps be able to make some remarks on the
connexion between natural things and our way of representing
them to our minds, which will cause the relation between the law
of gravitation and that of the conservation of force to appear in
a different light.
What is it in physics that we denote by the name Force ? Man
stands before the external world as a camera obscura, on the screen
of which Nature perpetually casts her images ~ we cannot under.
 the Conservation of Force. 83
stand these images in themselves, nor the objects from which
they proceed; but we see that under the same eircumstanees the
same images always appear, and this regularity of their appear-
ante permits us to determine them beforehand. We construct
formula~, either verbal or in mathematical symbols, and name the
principles from which these are dedueed Laws of Nature.
We have motion incessantly before us, partly as the motion
of masses, and partly as the motion of the ultimate particles of
matter among themselves, in the form of heat; or when the rays
of this heat excite our organs of vision, in the form of light.
AVe have so studied the circumstances under which these motions
vary and succeed each other, that we can predict their mode of
appearance, their intensity and their direction ; and we have
found that the formuhe which serve for this purpose assume
their simplest form, when we ascribe to the ultimate particles of
matter attributes which we name forces, the magnitude of which
we make dependent on mass and distance. No one can prove
that these attributes have a real existence, in the strict sense of
the word, that they exist in the things themselves, and beyond
the domain of human thought. From the experience of the
senses, we know no other real source of motion than other mo-
tion, and so on, till the links of the chain disappear from our
sight : but we help ourselves by assuming causes which we name
forces, with which we deal, and as experience proves, with good
effeet. They exist actually in the domain of thought, and have
there their full justification: whether they would also have an
existence supposing no thinking being were to have had air ex-
istence, is a question which man eannot decide, because, beyond
the sphere of his thought, knowledge has for him no existence.
The upshot of all natural investigations is to seize upon that
which comes immediately within the sphere of our pereeptions~
and to unfold that which, on account of its magnitude as regards
either time or space, is withdrawn from immediate perception, by
instruments, by experiments, or by induction, and finally to dis-
cover a connexion between the eo]lective ph~enomena which shall
be in harmony with our laws of thought. From this point of
view, and only from this, Newton's doubt as to the force of attrac-
tion acting at a distanee is, I believe, to be regarded. He ha~
shown by his acts how deeply he felt the neeessity of giving to
his law the form which he has given to it, because in this way alone
could it appear as the immediate expression of the facts; but he
went further, and wished to form a eoneeption of the forces which
were the results of his own logieal abstraction, and here he encoun-
tered difficulties. We represent to ourselves with perfect clearness
things and motions which lie without the domain of our senses,
and we need only the eonstruetive understanding, to form and
build up the conCeption. We figure to ourselves the motion of
65
84 Prof. Briicke on Gravitation and
the particles of air in sound, and of the particles of ~ether in light,
without any essential difficulty : the material for this is at hand.
We are acquainted with masses great and small : we know their
motions ; it is only necessary, by an act of thought, to bring the
latter into the proper form, abstracting from their relations of
time and space, and all is in order. But it is otherwise with
forces. We know forces only as mental abstractions, as abstrac-
tions from the changes which our ego perpetually suffers from
the external world. We possess therefore no sensuous material
from which we can form au image of them. All attempts that
we make in this direction only end in our substituting in a some-
what offhand manner, things for forces which are utterly differ-
ent from them. We represent them by weights which pull and
springs which push, because in particular cases these produce
the same effects as the forces in question ; or we picture them as
lines, because the changes of the latter in magnitude and direc-
tion are suited to represent the corresponding changes of the
forces. It is simply because forces cannot be pictured before
the mind, that Newton found it impossible to form a conception
of an attractive force, inherent in bodies and capable of acting
through a vacuum on other bodies ; and he to whose glance the
heavens were more penetrable than his inner self, confounded
this impossibility with absurdity. Nothing, however, is further
removed from absurdity than the notion of an attractive force
acting at a distance. In the ease of the abstractions of natural
science, the aphorism is perhaps truer than elsewhere, "'By
their fruits ye shall know them." And as Faraday himself
remarks, Newton's law has heen found valid '" to an extent that
could hardly have been within the conception of Newton himself
when he gave utterance to the law."
Its validity has thus been proved without our ever having
given up the notion of the actio in distans ; nay, the very idea of
an attractive force includes that of an action at a distance ; for
the only ph~enomenon which immediately and necessarily leads
to the assumption of an attractive force, is the approximation of
two masses to each other without external impulse, and without
the action of other masses. As the bodies are supposed to ap-
proach each other, they could not of course have been already
in contact, and as the action of all other particles is excluded, the
force which causes them to approach must act across the vacuum
between both masses. We shall also, if I mistake not, find that
the law of gravitation, as it has been hitherto expressed, is by
~o means in contradiction with the principle of the conservation
of force. I will here ask permission to proceed from Faraday's
own example. Let the mass A be separated from the mass B
by an external force; while this separation takes place, the
attraction diminishes, the attractive forces being in the inverse
 the Conservation of Force. 85
ratio of the squares of the distances. Where abides the force
which is here destroyed ? The reply is : - - I f the mass A be left
to itself, it moves back towards B, and when it has arrived at its
original position, it will be attracted by B with the same force
as before ; besides this it has attained a velocity, half the square
of which, multiplied by the mass of A, is exactly equal to the
work which was formerly expended in removing it from B.
There is therefore no force destroyed by the change which the
external cause has wrought; but just as much force appears at
the end as was expended in producing the change. Let us look
a little more closely into the matter with which we have here to
deal. What is our measure of the force of attraction ? It is
the augmentation of velocity which a body experiences in the
unit of time by the action of the force. In virtue of inertia,
the impulses of gravity are accumulated in the body, the velo-
city. augments in the same proportion, and the quantity stored
up m the unit of time serves as a measure for the magnitude of
the attractive force. This is the only true and direct measure
of a force; for as the very notion of a force has been derived
from the concrete pha~nomena of motion, the measure of a force
must also be derived from the same thing.
It is this augmentation of velocity which follows the law of
the inverse square of the distance, and this stands in no con-
tradiction, but in the most complete harmony with the principle
of the conservation of force. This principle affirms, that in every
system which is abandoned to itself the sum of the tensions
added to the sum of the vires viwe, gives at all times the same
quantity. In other words, that in every such system the quan-
tity which is obtained when the moving masses are multiplied
by half the squares of their velocities has a maximum, which is
given once for all, which cannot be overstepped, and of which
moreover nothing can be lost. Motion can never be destroyed
so as to be incapable of regeneration, because motion disappears
only in consequence of a change of place of the masses, which
change in due time again appears as a cause of motion, and on
the return of the masses to their original position, reproduces the
motion which was consumed during the change. It is here of
course assumed that the measure of the motion is always the
product obtained by the multiplication of the single masses with
the half-squares of their velocities. Let us take the simplest
system of all, the vibrating pendulum. The maximum above
referred to is the vis viva obtained when the mass is multiplied
by the half-square of the velocity with which the pendulum
passes its position of equilibrium ~ at every other point the vis
viva is less, and at the turning-points it is zero. But at these
points the whole force, as a cause of motion, is stored up ~ and
~vhenthe pendulum again attains its position of equifibrium~ the
86 Prof. Briicke on Gravitation and
original motion will be reproduced. In this latter position no
other cause of motion acts upon the pendulum than its own mo-
ment of inertia. When the pendulum moves away from its posi-
tion of equilibrium, and then loses velocity, but at the same time
generates a cause of motion, we express it by saying that vis viva
is transformed into tension* (actual energy intopotential energy t).
When the pendulum again approaches its position of equilibrium,
and from the cause of motion, motion itself follows, then we say
tension is transformed into vis viva (potential energy into actual
energy). An analogous state of things is observed throughout
nature, from the motion of the heavenly bodies to the motion of
the flame which flickers in our chimney, and in which the atoms
are freed from that mysterious state of tension into which they
have been forced by years of action of the solar rays.
But let us return to the example of Faraday. Let us first fix
our attention on the mass A, which is removed from the mass B.
Let us suppose B to be the earth, and A a stone which is cast from
the earth upwards. Let the earth be supposed to be at rest, and
let the influence of the atmosphere and the heavenly bodies be
disregarded. After the velocity of the stone has sunk to zero
it will fall back, and on reaching the earth will have attained a
final velocity, the half-square of which, multiplied by the mass,
gives a quantity of force, which, if exerted upwards, would be
exactly sufficient to carry the stone to the height from which it
has fallen. This is a known fact, and generally the first example
with wtlich the law of the conservation of force is illustrated. If
I imagine the stone to be cast higher and higher from the earth,
nothing is thereby changed, except that in the more distant por-
tions of its path the velocity is more slowly consumed, and on
returning is more slowly generated, than in the nearer portions :
the final result is always the same, only a longer time passes
before it arrives. Let us regard the stone at the moment when
its velocity is zero, that is, when it is at its greatest distance from
the earth. Has then the moving force, that is, the cause of
motion, diminished at the moment in question in the system
formed of the stone and the earth ? By no means. It is true
that the stone, by an external force, may now be more easily re-
moved from the em~h, and that it commences to fall with a
slower acceleration of its motion than would be the case if it
started from a point nearer to the earth ; but there is in the stone
a store of force accumulated, in virtue of which it attains a greater
final velocity the further it has been removed from the earth.
The terms 'living force,' 'tension force,' 'moving force,' as they
• See Helmholtz " On the Conservationof Force," Scient. Mere. t853.
p. 124.--ED.
t Rankine's "' Outlinesof the ScienceofEnergetics," Edinb. Phil. Joura.
July 1855.--Ev.
 t~e Co~ervation of i'orce. 87
are commonly made use of in the nomenclature of science, are
calculated to convey the idea that these are three different forms of
one and the same thing; but we must not suffer ourselves to fall
into this delusion ; we must always remember that they are three
totally different things. We call the sum of the motion actually
existing vis viva. We denote it as force, as cause of motion,
beeauso it not only continues to act in aeeordanee with the law
of inertia, but because it can be communicated to other bodies, in-
asmuch as motionless bodies can be set in motion by moving ones.
Tension is the term applied to the cause of motion still to bo
disposed of, which itself is not motion, wholly regardless of the
time in which it can generate or produce motion. ,decelerating
force is the term applied to the increase of velocity attained by
a mass, or which it can attain, in an infinitely short time, divided
by the length of the length of this infinitely small interval. The
accelerating force in a system is therefore dependent at any mo-
ment, first on the masses which are, or are to be, set in motion,
and the velocities which they may have already attained ; and
secondly, on the velocity with which tension is, or may be, trans-
formed into vis viva. If the accelerating force is to remain con-
stant for every single molecule, it is necessary that the velocit.y
with which the molecule transforms tension into vis viva, or vzs
viva into tension, when divided by the product of its mass and
velocity, should give a constant quotient.
Keeping this always in view, it will appear plain that the
accelerating force may increase or diminish, without at all inter-
fering with the principle that the sum of the tensions, added to
the sum of the vires vivce, always gives the same quantity ; and
we see that by the removal of two molecules from each other no
portion of the force is destroyed, the indestructibility of which is
affirmcd by the principle of the conservation of force.
Let us suppose a portion of the masses which gravitate towards
each other to be destroyed ; then certainly not only accelerating
force, but also, according to circumstances, a portion of the ten-
sion or of the vis viva, or of both, would be destroyed : but this
only confirms us in our way of viewing the subject. The law of
the indestructibility of matter has been proved as universally
valid as that of the conservation of force. That the destruction
of the one should involve that of the other, only shows us that
both stand in intimate connexion with cach other, and proves
that we are right in placing the cause of the notion of gravity
in the masses themselves, and not in the space between them.
Thus in all that has been hitherto said, so far as my conscious-
ness reaches, so far as I am capable of distinguishing true from
false, and like from unlike, all known facts are brought into
complete harmony with our laws of thought when we suppose
forces, as the causes of ph~cnomenaj to reside in the masses, the
 88 Prof. Briicke on Gravitation and
spaces between these masses being traversed by the forces. If
the forces could be imagined as existing in space, it must also be
conceivable that matter may be annihilated without changing the
sum of the forces, and this, at least by me, is not conceivable.
One more point remains to be considered, which I believe is
essential to the doubts raised by Faraday. We say the attrac-
tion diminishes with increasing distance, and moreover that the
attracting forces are to each other in the ratio of the inverse
squares of the distances. In Faraday's process of thought, this
is understood as if we assumed a change of the cause of motion
which actually resides in the masses. I do not know whether
this is a prevalent notion. It is difficult to obtain information
on the point, for an investigator may write memoirs all his life
long and never once express his convictions upon the subject.
I believe, lloweve5 it cannot be doubted that Faraday is right in
opposing this notion, and in assuming with Newton the existence
of a constantly active cause for gravitation. I believe also it may
be shown that this assumption of Faraday's contradicts neither
the facts themselves, nor the usual mode of interpreting them.
We say that the attracting forces vary inversely as the squares
of the distances ; we also say that the intensity of light varies
inversely as the squares of the distances, but are thereby far from
affirming anything regarding the intensity of the source of light
itself. We speak solely of the effects upon surfaces exposed to
the radiation, and know very well that the intensity of the lumi:
nous source wilt not be in the least affected by the proximity or
the distance of the illuminated objects. When the rays of light
were regarded not only as mathematical lines, but as the paths
of the light particles, it was said the intensity of the light dimi-
nishes inversely as the squares of the distances, because the areas
on which an equal number of rays fall, augment directly as the
squares of the distances. :Now that we deduce the action of
light from wave-motions, we know that the intensity must obey
the law of inverse squares, because during the propagation the
same sum of vis viva is incessantly transferred to new masses,
which augment directly as the squares of the distances. The
change as the inverse square of the distance, appears to us now
as a simple application of the law of the conservation of force.
We regard the attractive force residing in a mass as proceed-
ing in straight lines from it in all directions, just as light sends
its rays on all sides; and as we perceive the light when the
retina, or a body seen by us, falls in the domain of the rays, so
in like manner we perceive the action of the attractive forces
when a body comes in their way *. When, therefore, we say, the
* The rays of light existindependent of the presence of the secondbody,
but is this the case withforce? Does not the conceptionof forcecarrywith
it that of two material masses at least? If so, when one mass vanishes,
force becomes a nonentity.--En,
 the Conservation of Force. 89
effect of attraction diminishes inversely as the squares of the di-
stances, we can by no means refer this to the source of attraction ;
we must rather assume that the latter is constant, and that also
the sum of the effects neither diminishes nor increases with the
distance. Art example will make this clear.
Let a molecule be imagined with the space around it filled
with molecules which are scattered at equal distances from each"
other. For the sake of simplicity, le~ the latter be regarded as
of equal mass, and the mass of each of them as a vanishing
quantity in comparison with that of the first molecule, which I
will call the central molecule. The central molecule will attract
all the others, and the action upon each of them will vary as the
inverse squares of the distances. Let us suppose that around the
central molecule we have a spherical shell of definite thickness,
the sum of the actions proceeding from the central molecule will
always be the same within this shell, however great the distance
at which it is placed from the central molecule. For the action
on the single molecules diminishes as the square of the distance
increases, but the number of the molecules which make up such
a shell, augments directly as the square of the distance.
When, therefore, we say that the attracting forces are inversely
to each other as the squares of the distances, we wish to say
nothing else than that the attracting force which belongs to every
mass is constant, and spreads its actions, undiminished in their
totality, in all directions. They act the more feebly on the sepa-
rate parts the greater the space over which they are spread. We
are not hereby forced to assume a propagation in the ordinary
sense of the term, that is, a process which requires time for its
transmission. For the law of the change of densities (or inten-
sities) inversely as the squares of the distances, is totally indepen-
dent of this assumption. It is true of a system of an infinite num-
ber of straight lines which issue from a point, as well as for a wave-
motion which propagates itself on all sides round the same point.

[The idea of gravity was originally suggested by the attraction of

iron by a magnet. A magnetic pole and a mass of soft iron will, if
free to move, mutually approach each other, in virtue of some quality
resident in each, which quality we call, or may call, the force of
magnetism. In the ease of the soft iron this is a variable quality,
for tile induced magnetism of the latter augments as it approaches
the steel magnet. It would be no illegitimate use of language to say
that in the ease of tbe soft iron the force of magnetism varies, while
in the steel it rema;ns constant. Regarding, in the same way, the
force of gravil:y as a quality resident in the gravitating masses,
if this quality, as believed by Prof. Brileke, be eonstant, it would
certainly be a contradiction in terms to say that it varied inversely
as the square of the distance. But thisis not asserted ; and the dif-
ference between Mr. Faraday and his commentators we believe to be
90 Prof. Draper on the Nature of lffame,
mainly a difference of definition, while some influence is to be ascribed
to that daring hopefulness in investigation to which the world is so
deeply indebted, and which causes its possessor to see possibilities
of scientific conquest where others see none.--Ev.]

XIII. On the Nature of Flame, and on the Condition of the Sun's

Surface. By JoHz~ W. DRAPER, M.D., Professor of Che-
mistry and Physiology in the University of New York*.

A MONG the recent publications on photo-chemistry, there is

one by Professor Dove on the Electric Light (Phil. Mag.
Nov. 1857), which will doubtless attract the attention of those
interested in that branch of science. Examination by the prism,
and by absorbing and reflecting eoloured bodies, leads him to
the conclusion that it is necessary to consider the luminous
appearance as having two distinct sources :--1 st, the ignition or
incandescence of the material particles bodily passing in the
course of the discharge ; 2ndly, the proper electrical light itself.
As respects the first, he illustrates its method of increase fi'om
low to high temperatures, by supposing a screen to be with-
drawn from the red end of the spectrum through the eoloured
spaces successively towards the violet ; and that of the ]atter from
the bluish brush to the bright Leyden sparks, by a like screen
drawn from the violet towards the red.
The true electric light exhibits properties resembling those
observed in actual combustions, as though there was an oxida-
tion of a portion of the translated matter when the spark is
taken in air. The order of evolution of rays in this instance
happens to be the same as in the second illustration of Professor
Dove, that is, from the violet to the red. There are certain facts
connected with these appearances of colour which are not gene-
rally known, and deserve to be pointed out.
In the Philosophical Magazine (Feb. 1848), I showed experi.
mentally that there is a relation between the colour of a flame
and the energy with which the combustion giving rise to it is
going on. The more vigorous and complete the combustion, the
higher the refrangibility of the light. A flame burning in its
most tardy and restricted way, emits rays that are red ; but
burning in its most complete and effective manner, rays that are
violet. In intermediate states of combustion, the intermediate
eolours are evolved in their proper order of refrangibility.
The flame of a candle or lamp consists of a series of concen-
tric luminous shells, surrounding a central dark core. These
shells shine with different colours, the innermost one imme-
diately in contact with the dark core being red, and having a
temperature of 977 ° F. Upon this, in their proper order of
* Commu~eated by the Author.