Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/293




 * Let PQR be a spiral cutting all the radii SP, SQ, SR, &c., in equal angles. Draw the right line PT touching the spiral in any point P, and cutting the radius SQ in T; draw PO, QO perpendicular to the spiral, and meeting in O, and join SO. I say, that if the points P and Q approach and coincide, the angle PSO will become a right angle, and the ultimate ratio of the rectangle TQ $$\scriptstyle \times$$ 2PS to PQ² will be the ratio of equality.

For from the right angles OPQ, OQR, subduct the equal angles SPQ, SQR, and there will remain the equal angles OPS, OQS. Therefore a circle which passes through the points OSP will pass also through the point Q. Let the points P and Q coincide, and this circle will touch the spiral in the place of coincidence PQ, and will therefore cut the right line OP perpendicularly. Therefore OP will become a diameter of this circle, and the angle OSP, being in a semi-circle, becomes a right one. Q.E.D.

Draw QD, SE perpendicular to OP, and the ultimate ratios of the lines will be as follows: TQ to PD as TS or PS to PE, or 2PO to 2PS; and PD to PQ as PQ to 2PO; and, ex æquo perturbatè, to TQ to PQ as PQ to 2PS. Whence PQ² becomes equal to TQ $$\scriptstyle \times$$ 2PS. Q.E.D.


 * If the density of a medium in each place thereof be reciprocally as the distance of the places from an immovable centre, and the centripetal force be in the duplicate ratio of the density; I say, that a body may revolve in a spiral which cuts all the radii drawn from that centre in a given angle.

Suppose every thing to be as in the foregoing Lemma, and produce SQ to V so that SV may be equal to SP. In any time let a body, in a resisting medium, describe the least arc PQ, and in double the time the least arc PR; and the decrements of those arcs arising from the resistance, or their differences from the arcs which would be described in a non-resisting medium in the same times, will be to each other as the squares of the times in which they are generated; therefore the decrement of the