Herman Merivale.
SONG OF THE SCREW
A moving form or rigid mass,
Under whate'er conditions
Along successive screws must pass
Between each two positions.
It turns around and slides along—
This is the burden of my song.
The pitch of screw, if multiplied
By angle of rotation,
Will give the distance it must glide
In motion of translation.
Infinite pitch means pure translation,
And zero pitch means pure rotation.
Two motions on two given screws,
With amplitudes at pleasure,
Into a third screw-motion fuse;
Whose amplitude we measure
By parallelogram construction
(A very obvious deduction.)
Its axis cuts the nodal line
Which to both screws is normal,
And generates a form divine,
Whose name, in language formal,
Is "surface-ruled of third degree."
Cylindroid is the name for me.
Rotation round a given line
Is like a force along.
If to say couple you incline,
You're clearly in the wrong;—
'Tis obvious, upon reflection,
A line is not a mere direction.
So couples with translations too
In all respects agree;
And thus there centres in the screw
A wondrous harmony
Of Kinematics and of Statics,—
The sweetest thing in mathematics.
The forces on one given screw,
With motion on a second,
In general some work will do,
Whose magnitude is reckoned
By angle, force, and what we call
The coefficient virtual.
Rotation now to force convert,
And force into rotation;
Unchanged the work, we can assert,
In spite of transformation.
And if two screws no work can claim,
Reciprocal will be their name.