The letters of Thomas William Webb to Arthur Cowper Ranyard volume I
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Letter 3 Two weeks later This letter is addressed to ACR’s father, Mr Benjamin Ranyard Hardwick Parsonage Hereford Oct. 11 1858 Dear Sir, I think the idea contained in your favour is well worthy of consideration, and at any rate ought to be entertained as in part the cause of the curvature in the Comet’s tail – it is obvious, as you have very clearly pointed out, that some part of the curve, at least, is due to that cause – at the same time it is so complicated with the probable effect of a resisting medium as to remember the solution of the problem less satisfactory than might be wished. For though the existence of such a medium need not, as you observed, be assumed to account for the curve, it is indicated, as you are probably aware, by the diminished period of Encke’s Comet1 – as well as by the comparative density of the two sides of the tails of larger Comets – so that since, if it does exist, it must add to the curvature of the tail, it would be difficult to discriminate how much as this phenomenon was due to the one, and how much to the other cause, and hence the method – perfectly correct in theory – which you have proposed, of finding the rate of ascent of the tail, becomes embarrassed – and in the present state of our knowledge, inadequate. Yet it would be interesting to try its results. I do not think we have yet got matters at all strait as to Cometary phenomena. Though it is easy to speak of this resistance, and to see effects which look like it, the very striking and obvious fact that the branch of the tail which “precedes” –(that is according to the real or orbital, not the diurnal apparent motion of the Comet) has been very much denser and broader T  he nucleus pulsating with a low but diffused with a high magnifier
was surrounded by a circle of light, very strangely notched by the Directory: rwa rwa -> Ess 112L – Spring 2015 Name: Introduction to National Hurricane Center Products rwa -> Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Postdoctoral Investigator rwa -> Dougherty v. Salt 125 N. E. 94 (1919) Download 3.98 Mb. Share with your friends:
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