AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. FOR THE USE OF JUNIOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. BY RICHARD POTTER, A.M. F.C.P.S. LATE FELLOW OF QUEENS' COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF ST. ANDREW's; PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND ASTRONOMY TAYLOR AND WALTON, 28 UPPER GOWER STREET, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE: DEIGHTONS, CAMBRIDGE; AND PARKER, OXFORD. 1848. PREFACE. THE present treatise was undertaken to supply a book for the course of instruction of the Junior Mathematical Class of Natural Philosophy in University College, London. Although there was no scarcity of treatises within nearly the same limits as the present, yet the author had to regret that the students who went forward into his Senior Mathematical Class had to re-learn the subject in an entirely different manner; so that their previous reading of it was in a great measure lost to them. It has been the author's wish to supply a work which, whilst it presented to the less advanced student the more modern method of treating Mechanics, and taught him a general analytical method of solving the new problems he met with, as far as his mathematical attainments would reach, should, at the same time, be an advantageous foundation on which the superstructure of a more advanced study might be reared. Some experience in Professorial teaching leads the author to believe that he has succeeded to some extent in the object which he had in view; and he concludes that the book which will supply a desideratum in the Natural Philosophy course in his own lectures will be also acceptable to other teachers similarly situated. CONTENTS. Definitions-mass-matter, 1; forces-how measured, 2; what is required that a force may be fully known-ten- PAGE Forces which act in the same line, 5; forces which act in different directions-the parallelogram of forces, 7; the triangle of forces, 9; the parallelopiped of forces, 10; the polygon of forces, 11; graphical problem, 12; the moment ON FORCES WHOSE DIRECTIONS ARE PARALLEL The resultant of two parallel forces, 16; any number of |