Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/106

 Equations (5) and (6) are the general equations for the stresses at the boundaries at x, z, when h is a continuous function of x and z, and  being constant.

For the integration of equations (6) to get the resultant stresses and moments on the solid boundaries, so as to obtain the conditions of their equilibrium, it is necessary to know how x and z at any point on the boundary enter into h, as well as the equation ƒ(x, z) = 0, which determines the limits of the lubricating film. If y, the normal to one of the surfaces, has not the same direction for all points of this surface, in other words, if the surface is not plane, x and z become curvilinear co-ordinates, at all points perpendicular to y. Since, for lubrication, one of the surfaces must be plane, cylindrical, or a surface of revolution, we may put x = R, y = r − R, and z perpendicular to the plane of motion. Then, if the data are sufficient, the resultant stresses and moments between the surfaces are obtained by integrating the intensity of the stress and moments of intensity of stress over the surface.

This, however, is not the usual problem that arises. What is generally wanted is to find the thickness of the film where least (h0) and its angular position with respect to direction of load, to resist a definite load with a particular surface velocity. If the surfaces are plane, the general solution involves only one arbitrary constant, the least thickness (h0); since in any particular case the variation of h with x is necessarily fixed, as in this case lubrication affords no automatic adjustment of this slope. When both surfaces are curved in the plane of motion there are at least two arbitrary constants, h0, and the angular position of h0 with respect to direction of load; while if the surfaces are both curved in a plane perpendicular to the direction of motion as well as in the plane of motion, there are three arbitrary constants, h0, 0, z0. The only constraint necessary is to prevent rotation in the plane of motion of one of the surfaces, leaving this surface free to move in any direction and to adjust its position so as to be in equilibrium under the load.

The integrations necessary for the solutions of these problems are practicable—complete or approximate—and have been effected for circumstances which include the chief cases of practical lubrication, the results having been verified by reference to Tower’s experiments. In this way the verified theory is available for guidance outside the limits of experience as well as for determining the limiting conditions. But it is necessary to take into account certain subsidiary theories. These limits depend on the coefficient of viscosity, which diminishes as the temperature increases. The total work in overcoming the resistance is spent in generating heat in the lubricant, the volume of which is very small. Were it not for the escape of heat by conduction through the lubricant and the metal, lubrication would be impossible. Hence a knowledge of the empirical law of the variation of the viscosity of the lubricant with temperature, the coefficients of conduction of heat in the lubricant and in the metal, and the application of the theory of the flow of heat in the particular circumstances, are necessary adjuncts to the theory of lubrication for determining the limits of lubrication. Nor is this all, for the shapes of the solid surfaces vary with the pressure, and more particularly with the temperature.

The theory of lubrication has been applied to the explanation of the slipperiness of ice (Mem. Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1899).

 LUCAN [], ( 39–65), Roman poet of the Silver Age, grandson of the rhetorician Seneca and nephew of the philosopher, was born at Corduba. His mother was Acilia; his father, Marcus Annaeus Mela, had amassed great wealth as imperial procurator for the provinces. From a memoir which is generally attributed to Suetonius we learn that Lucan was taken to Rome at the age of eight months and displayed remarkable precocity. One of his instructors was the Stoic philosopher, Cornutus, the friend and teacher of Persius. He was studying at Athens when Nero recalled him to Rome and made him quaestor. These friendly relations did not last long. Lucan is said to have defeated Nero in a public poetical contest; Nero forbade him to recite in public, and the poet’s indignation made him an accomplice in the conspiracy of Piso. Upon the discovery of the plot he is said to have been tempted by the hope of pardon to denounce his own mother. Failing to obtain a reprieve, he caused his veins to be opened, and expired repeating a passage from one of his poems descriptive of the death of a wounded soldier. His father was involved in the proscription, his mother escaped, and his widow Polla Argentaria survived to receive the homage of Statius under Domitian. The birthday of Lucan was kept as a festival after his death, and a poem addressed to his widow upon one of these occasions and containing information on the poet’s work and career is still extant (Statius’s Silvae, ii. 7, entitled Genethliacon Lucani).

Besides his principal performance, Lucan’s works included poems on the ransom of Hector, the nether world, the fate of Orpheus, a eulogy of Nero, the burning of Rome, and one in honour of his wife (all mentioned by Statius), letters, epigrams, an unfinished tragedy on the subject of Medea and numerous miscellaneous pieces. His minor works have perished except for a few fragments, but all that the author wrote of the Pharsalia has come down to us. It would probably have concluded with the battle of Philippi, but breaks off abruptly as Caesar is about to plunge into the harbour of Alexandria. The Pharsalia opens with a panegyric of Nero, sketches the causes of the war and the characters of Caesar and Pompey, the crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar, the flight of the tribunes to his camp, and the panic and confusion in Rome, which Pompey has abandoned. The second book describes the visit of Brutus to Cato, who is persuaded to join the side of the senate, and his marriage a second time to his former wife Marcia, Ahenobarbus’s capitulation at Corfinium and the retirement of Pompey to Greece. In the third book Caesar, after settling affairs in Rome, crosses the Alps for Spain. Massilia is besieged and falls. The fourth book describes the victories of Caesar in Spain over Afranius and Petreius, and the defeat of Curio by Juba in Africa. In the fifth Caesar and Antony land in Greece, and Pompey’s wife Cornelia is placed in security at Lesbos. The sixth book describes the repulses of Caesar round Dyrrhachium, the seventh the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, the eighth his flight and assassination in Egypt, the ninth the operations of Cato in Africa and his march through the desert, and the landing of Caesar in Egypt, the tenth the opening incidents of the Alexandrian war. The incompleteness of the work should not be left out of account in the estimate of its merits, for, with two capital exceptions, the faults of the Pharsalia are such as revision might have mitigated or rendered. No such pains, certainly, could have amended the deficiency of unity of action, or supplied the want of a legitimate protagonist. The Pharsalia is not true to history, but it cannot shake off its shackles, and is rather a metrical chronicle than a true epic. If it had been completed according to the author’s design, Pompey, Cato and Brutus must have successively enacted the part of nominal hero, while the real hero is the arch-enemy of liberty and Lucan, Caesar. Yet these defects, though glaring, are not fatal or peculiar to Lucan. The false taste, the strained rhetoric, the ostentatious erudition, the tedious harangues and far-fetched or commonplace reflections so frequent in this singularly unequal poem, are faults much more irritating, but they are also faults capable of amendment, which the writer might not improbably have removed. Great allowance should also be made in the case of one who is emulating predecessors who have already carried art to its last perfection. Lucan’s temper could never have brooked mere imitation; his versification, no less than his subject, is entirely his own; he avoids the appearance of outward resemblance to his great predecessor with a persistency which can only have resulted from deliberate purpose, but he is largely influenced by the declamatory school of his grandfather and uncle. Hence his partiality for finished antithesis, contrasting strongly with his generally breathless style and turbid diction. Quintilian sums up both aspects of his genius with pregnant brevity, “Ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus,” adding with equal justice, “Magis oratoribus quam poetis annumerandus.” Lucan’s oratory, however, frequently approaches the regions of poetry, e.g. the apotheosis of Pompey at the beginning of the ninth book, and the passage in the same book where Cato, in the truest spirit of the Stoic philosophy, refuses to consult the oracle of Jupiter Ammon. Though in many cases Lucan’s rhetoric is frigid, hyperbolical, and out of keeping with the character of the speaker, yet his theme has a genuine hold upon him; in the age of Nero he celebrates the republic as a poet with the same energy with which in the age of Cicero he might have defended it as an orator.