Identifier: railroadengineer65newy (find matches)
Title: The railroad and engineering journal
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Railroad engineering Engineering Railroads
Publisher: New York : M.N. Forney
Contributing Library: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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up toward it instead of away.The lower disk in Professor Williss apparatus, whenblown upon, moves against the current toward the upperdisk. Dr. Thomas Young proved, in 1800, that a certaincurved surface suspended by a thread approached animpinging air current, instead of receding from it. M.(joupil found, in experimenting, that a suspended hollowshape was first blown out to a horizontal position by awind of sufficient velocity, and then, when that velocityincreased, actually drew into the wind for an instant andslackened the tension on the cord. It is also said that cer-tain forms of windmills wear more on the front stop thanon the back stop of their axle of rotation ; so that thereseems to be a mysterious action, which some French ob-servers, who have been watching birds soar, have, forwant of a better term, called their Aspiration, by whicha body acted upon by a current may actually draw for-ward into that current against its direction of motion. 464 THE RAILROAD AND (October, 1891.
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>> z X uz u OS m XH OSo X o o X X</) _)Hf- < Vol. LXV, Ko. 10.) ENGINEERING JOURNAL. 465 Thus it is seen that in such complicated matters theorycannot progress in advance of experiment, and theextreme importance of those experiments hitherto tried,or hereafter to be tried by a physicist possessing theability of Professor Langley, will in part be appreci-ated. Science has been awaiting the great physicist, who, likeGalileo or Newton, should bring order out of chaos inaerodynamics, and reduce its many anomalies to the ruleof harmonious law. It is not impossible that when thatlaw is formulated all the discrepancies and apparentanomalies which now appear, will be found easily ex-plained and accounted for by one simple general cause,which has been hitherto overlooked. Thus far, Professor Langley seems to have experimentedupon plane surfaces only, and to have measured chieflywhat has been termed in the table here given the liftand the drift at various angles. His conclusionsther

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