Sur les Principes de la Mécanique Rationelle

Abstract

M. DE FREYCINET first became known to the 1V1 · world as the author of a treatise on dynamics of some bulk and repute, which was published in 1858, and the essay before us shows that at the end of his long and distinguished career of active public life his interest in the subject remains unabated. Referring to his publications during the intervening period, we find two relating to dynamics. In 1887, he communicated to the Academy of Sciences (Comptes rendus, cv., pp. 903-910) a tnote containing the rather interesting suggestion that the term “dynamical capacity” should be adopted in the place of the term “density” as derived from dynamical considerations, on the analogy of calorific capacity; also some proposals about units which were not likely to meet with acceptance. He proposed a standard unit of length derived from the value of gravity at Paris, recommending it by the remark that the length of a pendulum can be measured more conveniently than that of a meridian of the earth. In 1896, he published his essays on the philosophy: of the sciences, containing some chapters on mechanics.

Sur les Principes de la Mécanique Rationelle.

Par C. de Freycinet, de l'lnstitut. Pp. viii + 167. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1902.) Price fr. 4.