Fourth.--If, on the contrary, I enlarge the angle A O C by moving the radius O C toward O B, then the sine and the versed sine both increase, and the cosine diminishes; and if, finally, I make O C coincide with O B, then the cosine has disappeared, the sine has become the radius O B, and the versed sine has become the radius O A, thus forming the two sides inclosing the right angle A O B. The study of this explanation will make you familiar with these important lines. The sine and the cosine I shall have occasion to employ in the latter part of my lecture. Now you know what the versed sine of an angle is, and are able to observe in Fig. 1 that the versed sine A E, of the angle A O C, represents in a general way the distance that the body A will be deflected from the tangent A D toward the center O while describing the arc A C.
The same law of deflection is shown, in smaller angles, in Fig. 2. In this figure, also, you observe in each of the angles A O B and A O C that the deflection, from the tangential direction toward the center, of a body moving in the arc A C is represented by the versed sine of the angle. The tangent to the arc at A, from which this deflection is measured, is omitted in this figure to avoid confusion. It is shown sufficiently in Fig. 1. The angles in Fig. 2 are still pretty large angles, being 12° and 24° respectively. These large angles are used for convenience of illustration; but it should be explained that this law does not really hold in them, as is evident, because the arc is longer than the tangent to which it would be connected by a line parallel with the versed sine. The law is absolutely true only when the tangent and arc coincide, and approximately so for exceedingly small angles.
Fig. 2
In reality, however, we have only to do with the case in which the arc and the tangent do coincide, and in which the law that the deflection is equal to the versed sine of the angle is absolutely true. Here, in observing this most familiar thing, we are, at a single step, taken to that which is utterly beyond our comprehension. The angles we have to consider disappear, not only from our sight, but even from our conception. As in every other case when we push a physical investigation to its limit, so here also, we find our power of thought transcended, and ourselves in the presence of the infinite.
We can discuss very small angles. We talk familiarly about the angle which is subtended by 1" of arc. On Fig. 2, a short line is drawn near to the radius O A'. The distance between O A' and this short line is 1° of the arc A' B'. If we divide this distance by 3,600, we get 1" of arc. The upper line of the Table of versed sines given below is the versed sine of 1" of arc. It takes 1,296,000 of these angles to fill a circular space. These are a great many angles, but they do not make a circle. They make a polygon. If the radius of the circumscribed circle of this polygon is 1,296,000 feet, which is nearly 213 geographical miles, each one of its sides will be a straight line, 6.283 feet long. On the surface of the earth, at the equator, each side of this polygon would be one-sixtieth of a geographical mile, or 101.46 feet. On the orbit of the moon, at its mean distance from the earth, each of these straight sides would be about 6,000 feet long.
The best we are able to do is to conceive of a polygon having an infinite number of sides, and so an infinite number of angles, the versed sines of which are infinitely small, and having, also, an infinite number of tangential directions, in which the body can successively move. Still, we have not reached the circle. We never can reach the circle. When you swing a sling around your head, and feel the uniform stress exerted on your hand through the cord, you are made aware of an action which is entirely beyond the grasp of our minds and the reach of our analysis.
So always in practical operation that law is absolutely true which we observe to be approximated to more and more nearly as we consider smaller and smaller angles, that the versed sine of the angle is the measure of its deflection from the straight line of motion, or the measure of its fall toward the center, which takes place at every point in the motion of a revolving body.
Then, assuming the absolute truth of this law of deflection, we find ourselves able to explain all the phenomena of centrifugal force, and to compute its amount correctly in all cases.
We have now advanced two steps. We have learned the direction and the measure of the deflection, which a revolving body continually suffers, and its resistance to which is termed centrifugal force. The direction is toward the center, and the measure is the versed sine of the angle.