Descripción
"A LANDMARK IN THE HISTORY OF DYNAMICS" (PMM) [BOUND WITH:] THE BIRTH OF SCIENTIFIC METEOROLOGY . First edition of one of the classics in the history of science, d Alembert s formalization of the new science of mechanics. "The Treatise on Dynamics was d Alembert s first major book and it is a landmark in the history of mechanics. It reduces the laws of the motion of bodies to a law of equilibrium. Its statement that 'the internal forces of inertia must be equal and opposite to the forces that produce the acceleration' is still known as d Alembert s principle . This principle is applied to many phenomena and, in particular, to the theory of the motion of fluids. It has become useful in the practical solution of many technical and mechanical problems, and is as important for the motion of bodies as is the principle of virtual velocities for their equilibrium the latter formulated by Johann Bernoulli in 1717. It was left to Lagrange to combine both these principles and to construct mechanical equations applicable to the motions of any system of bodies" (Printing and the Mind of Man, 195). "In the first part of the treatise Alembert developed his own three laws of motion: inertia, the parallelogram of motion, and equilibrium; his third law assumed conservation of momentum and defined mass accordingly. The second part contains the first statement of what is now known as Alembert s principle (Norman). "The Traité de dynamique, which has become the most famous of his scientific works, is significant in many ways. First, it is clear that d Alembert recognized that a scientific revolution had occurred, and he thought that he was doing the job of formalizing the new science of mechanics … The Traité also contained the first statement of what is known as d Alembert s principle. D Alembert was, furthermore, in the tradition that attempted to develop mechanics without using the notion of force. Finally, it was long afterward said (rather simplistically) that in this work he resolved the famous vis viva controversy (whether, in modern terms, it is momentum or kinetic energy that measures the quantity of motion ), a statement with just enough truth in it to be plausible" (DSB). The second work, in which d Alembert laid the foundations of scientific meteorology, is an application of the methods set out in the Traité de dynamique. He rejected the conception of Edmund Halley that the general circulation of the atmosphere is significantly controlled by the distribution of solar heating, and instead explained the origin of winds by means of the gravitational effects of the sun and moon. "In 1747 d Alembert published two more important works, one of which, the Réflexions sur la cause générale des Vents, won a prize from the Prussian Academy. In it appears the first general use of partial differential equations in mathematical physics. Euler later perfected the techniques of using these equations … D Alembert s treatise on winds was the only of his works honored by a prize and, ironically, was later shown to be based on insufficient assumptions. D Alembert assumed that wind patterns were the result of tidal effects on the atmosphere, and he relegated the influence of heat to a minor role, one that caused only local variations from the general circulation. Still, as a work on atmospheric tides it was successful, and Lagrange continued to praise d Alembert s efforts many years later" (DSB). "This was the first attempt to express the motions of the atmosphere in mathematical terms; a new fruitful trend in meteorology" (Persson). "The [Traité de dynamique] was published in 1743 by David, the great bookselling and printing house, … presented to the Académie des Sciences on 22 June and given a favourable review by the commissioners P. L. Maupertuis and F. Nicole. It includes a letter to Count de Maurepas, a 26-page preface summarizing and commenting on the main general ideas, and finally the body of the text with all its trimmings (table of conte.
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