Abstract
IN the letter in NATURE, vol. xxii. p. 604, which we wrote at the request of Major Herschel, who asked for information regarding the connection between tensional and torsional strains of a brass wire, we mentioned that there were many papers scattered through the Proceedings of learned societies dealing with the fluidity of metals. There is one communication to which we might specially have referred, as it deals in particular with the torsional yielding of wires under tension, and this is a paper on “Torsion,” by Prof. G. Wiedemann, in the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 4, vol. vi., 1879, pp. 485–520, and of which a translation is given in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. ix., January 1880, pp. 1–15, and February, pp. 97–109. The first part of this paper gives a detailed account of experiments which show:—(1) That a brass wire often subjected to a particular torsion, either in one or in both directions, becomes “killed” for any less torsions, that is, follows Hooke's law for its temporary torsions; (2) that a wire under tension acquires greater torsional set from a given torsional couple than when the wire is unextended; (3) that a wire under even considerable tension may be killed by torsion in alternately opposite directions, that is, it will obey Hooke's law for any tension or torsion less than the stresses actually applied originally. Prof. Wiedemann in the second part of his paper considers the well-known “agitation effects,” and enters on an explanation of the phenomenon based upon molecular allineations referring to the magnetisation theory of Weber and Kolrausch which is based on the same idea.
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PERRY, J., AYRTON, W. Wire Torsion. Nature 23, 35 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023035a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023035a0
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