The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Splash of a Drop, by A. M. Worthington

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Title: The Splash of a Drop

Author: A. M. Worthington

Release Date: November 2, 2008 [EBook #27125]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE_

THE SPLASH OF A DROP

BY
PROF. A.M. WORTHINGTON, M.A., F.R.S.

_Being the reprint of a Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution
of Great Britain, May 18, 1894._

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL
LITERATURE COMMITTEE.

LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.
1895.

THE SPLASH OF A DROP

INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SPLASH OF A WATER-DROP FALLING ABOUT 16
INCHES INTO MILK.

[Illustration: Time after contact = .0262 sec.]

[Illustration: Time after contact = .0391 sec.]

[Illustration: Time after contact = .101 sec.]

THE SPLASH OF A DROP

The splash of a drop is a transaction which is accomplished in the
twinkling of an eye, and it may seem to some that a man who proposes to
discourse on the matter for an hour must have lost all sense of
proportion. If that opinion exists, I hope this evening to be able to
remove it, and to convince you that we have to deal with an exquisitely
regulated phenomenon, and one which very happily illustrates some of the
fundamental properties of fluids. It may be mentioned also that the
recent researches of Lenard in Germany and J.J. Thomson at Cambridge, on
the curious development of electrical charges that accompanies certain
kinds of splashes, have invested with a new interest any examination of
the mechanics of the phenomenon. It is to the mechanical and not to the
electrical side of the question that I shall call your attention this
evening.

The first well