Rebound, water in pipes, bellows, and lifting by descent
A page of mechanics: percussion loss, communicating tubes, bellows action, and limbs raising weights
This sheet gathers several independent mechanics problems. At upper right a body strikes a surface and rebounds along the lines a, m, n, and Leonardo asks whether the bounce loses any of the moving body's velocity; nearby a bent pipe illustrates that water sent in at n can never rise above the height of m, whatever the tube widths. Other diagrams treat the proportion of air a bellows expels to its interior void, a device in which the descent of a weight of 100 at n raises 100 at m, and a limb-driven lever whose pyramidal wing has its center of effort one third of the way toward the base.
On this page
Does a rebound lose the body's velocity?
The upper-right diagram shows a body striking a surface and bouncing away along the lines a, m, n. Leonardo asks whether the rebound of the struck object has lost part of the velocity the moving body had, and by how much.
Water cannot rise above its source height (m f, f n)
Labelled 'the nature of water', a bent pipe shows that water sent in through n will never pass the height of m. This holds even if the pipe f n were infinitely thicker than m f, or m f thicker than f n.
How much air a bellows drives out
For the bellows (mantaco) drawn over a box, the part of the pressed weight that the air drives out bears the same proportion to the remainder as the mouth of the bellows bears to its whole interior void.
Descent of 100 at n raises 100 at m
The upper-left device carries weights marked 100 at n and 100 at m. With the power of the descent of 100 at n one raises 100 at m.
Limbs driving a pyramidal lever
Here the power of the leg moves n and the power of the arms moves m, alternating legs when one tires. The effort of the pyramidal wing lies at one third of its length toward the base, and the power of c d at its middle n.