Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/332

 sistance of the body E to the resistance of the body G. Let the bodies D and F be equally swift, as also the bodies E and G; and, augmenting the velocities of the bodies D and F in any ratio, and diminishing the forces of the particles of the medium B in the duplicate of the same ratio, the medium B will approach to the form and condition of the medium C at pleasure; and therefore the resistances of the equal and equally swift bodies E and G in these mediums will perpetually approach to equality so that their difference will at last become less than any given. Therefore since the resistances of the bodies D and F are to each other as the resistances of the bodies E and G, those will also in like manner approach to the ratio of equality. Therefore the bodies D and F, when they move with very great swiftness, meet with resistances very nearly equal; and therefore since the resistance of the body F is in a duplicate ratio of the velocity, the resistance of the body D will be nearly in the same ratio.

. 3. The resistance of a body moving very swift in an elastic fluid is almost the same as if the parts of the fluid were destitute of their centrifugal forces, and did not fly from each other; if so be that the elasticity of the fluid arise from the centrifugal forces of the particles, and the velocity be so great as not to allow the particles time enough to act.

. 4. Therefore, since the resistances of similar and equally swift bodies, in a medium whose distant parts do not fly from each other, are as the squares of the diameters, the resistances made to bodies moving with very great and equal velocities in an elastic fluid will be as the squares of the diameters, nearly.

. 5. And since similar, equal, and equally swift bodies, moving through mediums of the same density, whose particles do not fly from each other mutually, will strike against an equal quantity of matter in equal times, whether the particles of which the medium consists be more and smaller, or fewer and greater, and therefore impress on that matter an equal quantity of motion, and in return (by the 3d Law of Motion) suffer an equal re-action from the same, that is, are equally resisted; it is manifest, also, that in elastic fluids of the same density, when the bodies move with extreme swiftness, their resistances are nearly equal, whether the fluids consist of gross parts, or of parts ever so subtile. For the resistance of projectiles moving with exceedingly great celerities is not much diminished by the subtilty of the medium.

. 6. All these things are so in fluids whose elastic force takes its rise from the centrifugal forces of the particles. But if that force arise from some other cause, as from the expansion of the particles after the manner of wool, or the boughs of trees, or any other cause, by which the particles are hindered from moving freely among themselves, the resistance, by reason of the lesser fluidity of the medium, will be greater than in the Corollaries above.