Page:ScienceAndHypothesis1905.djvu/140

108 acceleration of B is noted. The experiment is then renewed with both A and B until the increment of length is &beta;. The four accelerations observed should be proportional. Here we have an experimental verification of the law of acceleration enunciated above. Again, we may consider a body under the action of several threads in equal tension, and by experiment we determine the direction of those threads when the body is in equilibrium. This is an experimental verification of the law of the composition of forces. But, as a matter of fact, what have we done? We have defined the force acting on the string by the deformation of the thread, which is reasonable enough; we have then assumed that if a body is attached to this thread, the effort which is transmitted to it by the thread is equal to the action exercised by the body on the thread; in fact, we have used the principle of action and reaction by considering it, not as an experimental truth, but as the very definition of force. This definition is quite as conventional as that of Kirchoff, but it is much less general.

All the forces are not transmitted by the thread (and to compare them they would all have to be transmitted by identical threads). If we even admitted that the earth is attached to the sun by an invisible thread, at any rate it will be agreed that we have no means of measuring the increment of the thread. Nine times out of ten, in consequence, our definition will be in default; no