| Reference number | AP/34/19 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Unpublished paper, 'On the application of the law of the conservation of energy to the determination of the magnetic meridian on board ship; when out of reach or out of sight of land' by William John Macquorn Rankine |
| Date | 2 April 1853 |
| Description | Rankine states that, assuming that when a ship is swung completely round, so that her head bears exactly as it did at first, the magnetism of the ship, and that of the compass-needle return to their original condition, the following theorem is necessarily true: the mechanical power developed by the mutual action of the ship and of the compass-needle during a complete revolution of the ship is equal to zero.
Annotations in pencil throughout.
Subject: Physics / Marine engineering
Received 5 April 1853. Communicated by Col [Edward] Sabine.
Written by Rankine in Glasgow [Scotland].
Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 6 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the application of the law of the conservation of energy to the determination of the magnetic meridian on board ship, when out of reach or out of sight of land'. |
| Extent | 12p |
| Format | Manuscript |
| Physical description | Ink and graphite pencil on paper |
| Digital images | View item on Science in the Making |
| Access status | Open |
| Related material | DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1850.0110 |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA1846 | Rankine; William John Macquorn (1820 - 1872) | 1820 - 1872 |
| NA8279 | Sabine; Sir; Edward (1788 - 1883) | 1788 - 1883 |