Studies of Falling Water Drops, Splashes and Motion
Rebounding droplets, viscosity, the meniscus and a sinking ship, with notes on motion
The central column and its pen sketches study how water behaves at its surface: a struck drop rebounds, sometimes as twin droplets that rejoin, and a thin descending thread of water is faster where it is finer. Surrounding notes examine the viscosity that draws a stretched drop back into a sphere, the weight a drop gains as it falls, the raised edges of water against a wet vessel, and how a sinking ship drags the surrounding surface and vessels into its hollow. A right-hand column of physics maxims opens with rules of contrary and rotatory motion and the geometry of point, line and surface, while columns of figures run down the right margin; hanging apparatus is sketched at the top of the sheet.
On this page
Contrary and rotatory motion; point, line and surface
A body cannot make two contrary motions in the same time; they arise only one after the other, and unequal powers produce rotatory motion. The note adds that the point is the middle of the line, the line the middle of the surface, and the surface the boundary of bodies, each partaking nothing of the next; and that a flame's straightness follows the line of its matter's velocity.
How struck water rebounds in droplets
A drop that rebounds behaves like one striking the skin of the water, rising higher the higher the incident motion falls. When struck, the water opens, the droplet leaps back, the water closes and the wave contracts to the point of division, so a rebounding drop can form two joined droplets. A thin continuous thread of falling water is faster where it is finer than where it is thick.
Viscosity and the spherical form of a falling drop (a, b, c)
Every liquid partakes of viscosity, and the thicker it is the more viscous, so its parts separate less easily. Once divided, the stretched parts draw in again and recompose a spherical figure at their extremities, rising until overcome by their own weight. The falling filament is lettered a, b, c.
The meniscus, a submerged body and a sinking ship
A drop falling on the water rebounds as much water into the air as equals its own weight, and gains weight as it gains motion in the air. In a narrow vessel the water rises at the sides by the volume of the submerged body, and less in a wide one; water stands higher at the wet edges of a vessel than in the middle. A sinking ship drags the surface into its hollow and pulls neighbouring vessels toward it, and artillery flashes are said to break the winds of the typhoons that sink ships.
Columns of figures
Two vertical columns of numbers run down the right side of the sheet, working with values such as 1000, 200, 122 and 17. They record calculations set apart from the prose.
Objects suspended by cords (untranscribed)
At the top of the leaf are pen sketches of things hung by threads: a bag-like net, a plumb line and small suspended forms. They carry no transcription in this edition and are described only from what is drawn.