Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2015
The object of this paper is to shew how the laws of the phenomena of Elasticity and Expansion, as connected with heat, may be reduced to mechanical principles by means of an hypothesis called that of Molecular Vortices.
The author ascribes the first distinct statement of an hypothesis of this kind to Sir Humphrey Davy, and refers to Mr Joule as having supported it; but he states that its consequences, to the best of his knowledge, have not hitherto been developed by means of the principles of Analytical Mechanics.