Balance arms and weights hung from angled cords
The rule of the counterweight; natural weight versus accidental weight
Folio 1v sets out how to find the counterweight on a balance (multiply the longer arm by the weight it carries and divide by the shorter arm) and distinguishes 'natural' weight from the 'accidental' weight produced by the angle at which supporting cords meet a load. Beam-balances with numbered weights and triangular cord-and-weight suspensions illustrate propositions Leonardo cites from his 'ninth book.' He also notes that force has no weight and that motion makes force grow and diminish. The facing folio 14r is blank.
On this page
Rule for the counterweight of a balance
Multiply the longer arm of the balance by the weight it sustains and divide by the shorter arm; the result is the weight which, placed on the shorter arm, resists the descent of the longer one. He adds that force has no weight, the blow does not endure, and motion makes force grow and diminish.
Natural gravity unchanged by the angle of the cords
By the 4th of the 9th, changing the angle the cords make at their junction with the weight does not change the distribution of natural gravity; only the accidental weight changes, growing greater as that angle grows thicker.
Real arms versus potential arms
By the 6th of the 9th, the weight 3 is not distributed to the real arms of the balance in the proportion of those arms, but in the proportion that the potential arms have between themselves.
Only the natural weight altered
In this demonstration only the natural weight is changed; the accidental weight stays permanent, since neither the obliquity of cord a b nor the equality of cord b c is altered.
