Fragments of Science

Fragments of Science is a series of detached essays, addresses, and reviews by John Tyndall. The contents list includes entries for The Constitution of Nature, Visible and Invisible Radiation, and Absorption of Radiant Heat by Gases. A table in the text expresses the relative amounts of wave-motion absorbed by the respective gases, with the quantity intercepted by air taken as unity.

The text takes the heart as a striking example: were the oxidation necessary to sustain the heart's action exerted upon its own tissue, it would be utterly consumed in 8 days. The text gives Mayer's conclusion from these calculations in his own words: the muscle is only the apparatus by means of which the conversion of the force is effected. The text points to a butterfly with a spot of orange on its wing, and says that if we look at a drawing made a century ago of one of its ancestors, we probably find the selfsame spot. The text asks who or what planned this molecular rhythm, and says that we do not know, because science fails even to inform us whether it was ever planned.