Ebook: Popular scientific lectures

Translated by Thomas Joseph McCormack, from the 3rd German Ed, , rev.&enlarged, KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUEBNER & CO., LONDON, 1898/ Электронное издание 2012. - 194 с.ls, reveals to us a great multiplicity of form. But great as this multiplicity is, the common features of the figures also are easily discernible."All forms of Nature are allied, though none is the same as the other; Thus, their common chorus points to a hidden law."This hidden law Plateau discovered. It may be expressed, somewhat prosily, as follows:1) If several plane liquid films meet in a figure they are always three in number, and, taken in pairs, form, each with another, nearly equal angles.2) If several liquid edges meet in a figure they are always four in number, and, taken in pairs, form, each with another, nearly equal angles.This is a strange law, and its reason is not evident. But we might apply this criticism to almost all laws. It is not always that the motives of a law-maker are discernible in the form of the law he constructs. But our law admits of analysis into very simple elements or reasons. If we closely examine the paragraphs which state it, we shal