Page:Young - Outlines of experiments and inquiries respecting sound and light (1800).djvu/22

 nous: but it is not demonstrable that this circumstance would affect the divergency of the motion, except at the instant of its commencement, and perhaps not even then in a material degree; for, in general, the motion is communicated with a very gradual increase of intensity. The subject, however, deserves a more particular investigation; and, in order to obtain a more solid foundation for the argument, it is proposed, as soon as circumstances permit, to institute a course of experiments for ascertaining, as accurately as possible, the different strength of a sound once projected in a given direction, at different distances from the axis of its motion.

Various opinions have been entertained respecting the decay of sound. M. has published a calculation, by which its force is shown to decay nearly in the simple ratio of the distances; and M.  equations for the sounds of conical pipes lead to a similar conclusion. The same inference would follow from a completion of the reasoning of Dr., Dr. , and Professor. It has been very elegantly demonstrated by, and may also be proved in a much more simple manner, that when motion is communicated through a series of elastic bodies increasing in magnitude, if the number of bodies be supposed infinitely great, and their difference infinitely small, the motion of the last will be to that of the first in the subduplicate ratio of their respective magnitudes; and since, in the case of concentric spherical laminæ of air, the bulk increases in the duplicate ratio of the distance, the motion will in this case be directly, and the velocity inversely, as the distance. But, however true this may