Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/296

 CHAPTER VIII.

KINEMATIC ANALYSIS.

63. The Problems of Kinematic Analysis.

THE analysis of a kinematic arrangement as such consists in sepa- rating it into those parts which may be regarded kinematically as elements, and in determining the manner in which these are combined into pairs and kinematic chains. All constructive details are left out of the question. The notation which we have formed gives us the means of representing the results of the analysis in a form which can be easily surveyed, and which distinctly expresses the law of their connection. We shall now undertake a series of such investigations ; partly in order to show how the method of analysis is applied, but principally in order to deter- mine clearly the nature of certain important subdivisions of Ma- chine-science. Our work will show us that hitherto there has been an entire want of definiteness about many fundamental ideas, with which nevertheless it has been thought easy to operate. We shall have to rectify many common notions; indeed we shall find necessary the destruction, or at least total transformation, of some propositions apparently universal. As compensation for this, however, we shall be able to place on a really scientific basis, other conceptions of even greater meaning and weight.