The subject to which your attention is now invited is

THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF BALANCING FORCES DEVELOPED IN MOVING BODIES.

This is a subject with which every one who expects to be concerned with machinery, either as designer or constructor, ought to be familiar.  The principles which underlie it are very simple, but in order to be of use, these need to be thoroughly understood.  If they have once been mastered, made familiar, incorporated into your intellectual being, so as to be readily and naturally applied to every case as it arises, then you occupy a high vantage ground.  In this particular, at least, you will not go about your work uncertainly, trying first this method and then that one, or leaving errors to be disclosed when too late to remedy them.  On the contrary, you will make, first your calculations and then your plans, with the certainty that the result will be precisely what you intend.

Moreover, when you read discussions on any branch of this subject, you will not receive these into unprepared minds, just as apt to admit error as truth, and possessing no test by which to distinguish the one from the other; but you will be able to form intelligent judgments with respect to them.  You will discover at once whether or not the writers are anchored to the sure holding ground of sound principles.

It is to be observed that I do not speak of balancing bodies, but of balancing forces.  Forces are the realities with which, as mechanical engineers, you will have directly to deal, all through your lives.  The present discussion is limited also to those forces which are developed in moving bodies, or by the motion of bodies.  This limitation excludes the force of gravity, which acts on all bodies alike, whether at rest or in motion.  It is, indeed, often desirable to neutralize the effect of gravity on machinery.  The methods of doing this are, however, obvious, and I shall not further refer to them.

Two very different forces, or manifestations of force, are developed by the motion of bodies.  These are

MOMENTUM AND CENTRIFUGAL FORCE.

The first of these forces is exerted by every moving body, whatever the nature of the path in which it is moving, and always in the direction of its motion.  The latter force is exerted only by bodies whose path is a circle, or a curve of some form, about a central body or point, to which it is held, and this force is always at right angles with the direction of motion of the body.

Respecting momentum, I wish only to call your attention to a single fact, which will become of importance in the course of our discussion.  Experiments on falling bodies, as well as all experience, show that the velocity of every moving body is the product of two factors, which must combine to produce it.  Those factors are force and distance.  In order to impart motion to the body, force must act through distance.  These two factors may be combined in any proportions whatever.  The velocity imparted to the body will vary as the square root of their product.  Thus, in the case of any given body,