Abstract
AS the important researches of Mr. Crookes may be said to have made the evidence of the molecular state of matter (grounded on indirect reasoning) almost ocularly visible—the mechanics of gaseous matter therefore acquires a fresh interest. As some years back the present writer devoted much thought to the clear realisation of the nature of the motions of the molecules of gases in connection with a proposed explanation of the mode of propagation of sound on the basis of the kinetic theory (published in the Philosophical Magazine for June, 1877), it then appeared to him that the systematic regularity of the motions of the molecules of gases was not in practice so generally appreciated as it might be; although of course the mathematical basis of the subject was well established. It has been not unusual to speak of the extreme “irregularity” of the normal motions of gaseous molecules—which is undoubtedly true of any molecule taken individually. The comparison of the molecules of a gas to a “swarm of bses” (sometimes adopted), though no doubt highly convenient and useful to aid the conceptions in some respects, has probably gone to support (rather than not) the idea of a kind of confusion in the motions of the constituent molecules of gases; whereby the systematic regularity (or symmetry of the motion) tends to be left out of view. This will perhaps appear more evident if I state the following proposition in regard to a gas, which is only a direct corollary from the established mathematical principles—true in every state of the gas, but emphasised by rarefaction.
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PRESTON, S. On Some Points Relating to the Dynamics of “Radiant Matter” . Nature 23, 461–464 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/023461a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023461a0