I. On the physics of media that are composed of free and perfectly elastic molecules in a state of motion

Abstract

Abstract The publication of this paper after nearly half a century demands a word of explanation; and the opportunity may be taken to point out in what respects the received theory of gases had been anticipated by Waterston, and to offer some suggestions as to the origin of certain errors and deficiencies in his views. So far as I am aware, the paper, though always accessible in the Archives of the Royal Society, has remained absolutely unnoticed. Most unfortunately the abstract printed at the time (‘Roy. Soc. Proc.,’ 1846, vol. 5, p. 604; here reprinted as Appendix I.), gave no adequate idea of the scope of the memoir, and still less of the nature of the results arrived at. The deficiency was in some degree supplied by a short account in the ‘Report of the British Association’ for 1851 (here reprinted as Appendix II.), where is distinctly stated the law, which was afterwards to become so famous, of the equality of the kinetic energies of different molecules at the same temperature.

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