Page:On the connexion of the physical sciences (1834).djvu/34

22 the centre of gravity of the system, about which the whole oscillates within very narrow limits, and that this plane will always remain parallel to itself, whatever changes time may induce in the orbits of the planets, in the plane of the ecliptic, or even in the law of gravitation; provided only that our system remains unconnected with any other. The position of the plane is determined by this property—that if each particle in the system be multiplied by the area described upon this plane in a given time, by the projection of its radius vector about the common centre of gravity of the whole, the sum of all these products will be a maximum. La Place found that the plane in question is inclined to the ecliptic at an angle of nearly 1° 35' 31", and that, in passing through the sun, and about midway between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, it may be regarded as the equator of the solar system, dividing it into two parts, which balance one another in all their motions. This plane of greatest inertia, by no means peculiar to the solar system, but existing in every system of bodies suomittcd to their mutual attractions only, always maintains a fixed position, whence the oscillations of the system may be estimated through unlimited time. Future astronomers will know, from its immutability or variation, whether the sun and his attendants are connected or not with