"Magnetic needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... be profitably interpreted by contraries, a process of which the great Tycho Brahe is said to have availed himself in the case of the little Lackwit, who used to sit and mutter at his feet while he was studying. A mind of this sort we may compare to a magnetic needle, the poles of which have been suddenly reversed by a flash of lightning, or other more obscure accident of nature. It may be safely concluded, that to those whose judgment or information he respected, Sir Alexander Ball did not content himself with giving access and attention. ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... have occurred more than a century earlier. Tiraboschi, who investigates the matter with his usual erudition, passing by the doubtful reference of Guiot de Provins, whose age and personal identity even are contested, traces the familiar use of the magnetic needle as far back as the first half of the thirteenth century, by a pertinent passage from Cardinal Vitri, who died 1244; and sustains this by several similar references to other authors of the same century. Capmany finds no notice of its use by the Castilian navigators ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... terms an intense inward sensation, has no force. We cannot properly speaking be sensible of our independence, and we are not aware always of the causes, often imperceptible, whereon our resolution depends. It is as though the magnetic needle took pleasure in turning towards the north: for it would think that it was turning independently of any other cause, not being aware of the imperceptible movements of the magnetic matter. Nevertheless ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... guide as to our direction, unerring as the magnetic needle: we were traversing the region of the "polar plant," the planes of whose leaves, at almost every step, pointed out our meridian. It grew upon our track, and was crushed under the hoofs of our ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... ships, with 120 men. He set sail from the port of Palos, in Andalusia, on a Friday, August 3, 1492, first steering to the Canary Islands, and then standing due west. In September, to the amazement of all on board, the compass was seen to "vary": an important scientific discovery—viz., that the magnetic needle does not always point to the pole-star. Some writers have imagined that the compass was for the first time utilized for a long journey by Columbus, but the occult power of the magnetic needle or "lodestone" had been ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... movement of the heat of the earth; its thermic condition. Law of the increase of heat with the increase of depth — p. 160, 161 and note. Magnetism electricity in motion. Periodical variation of terrestrial magnetism. Disturbance of the regular course of the magnetic needle. Magnetic storms; extension of their action. Manifestations of magnetic force on the earth's surface presented under three classes of phenomena, namely, lines of equal force (isodynamic), equal inclination (isoclinic), and equal deviation (isogonic). Position of the magnetic ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... better brain than usual, for when the whirl came to an end, it always found his pointing like the magnetic needle to the north. It had been Master Joseph's plan to pretend a good deal of earnestness in the struggle which he was certain would come in this place; but he was pleased to find that there was no need of any pretence in the matter. The horse, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... a curtsey of approbation. She moved her little head with a quiver like that of the magnetic needle; raised her chin slightly as if she would ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... for measuring static electricity, differing from a galvanometer, which measures a current in a wire that acts on the magnetic needle of the galvanometer. ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... seamen produced a pocket compass. His startled exclamation brought other members of the crew around him. The magnetic needle was apparently describing a semicircle. U75 was swinging round ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... a way that signals can be carried to a distance. Other disturbances, however, can be made in the ether, stronger than those which create light. If we charge a wire with an electric current and place a magnetic needle near it we find it moves the needle from one position to another. This effect is called an electro-magnetic disturbance in the ether. Again when we charge an insulated body with electricity we find that it attracts any light substance ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... in the accuracy and completeness of magnetic observations which was obtained by the new method, opened up fields of research which were hardly suspected to exist by those whose observations of the magnetic needle had been conducted in a more primitive manner. We must reserve for its proper place in our course any detailed description of the disturbances to which the magnetism of our planet is found to be subject. Some of these disturbances are periodic, following ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell |
