590 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
a narrow meaning to such a word as force may believe that they are im¬ 
proving onr terminology by rendering it, as they say, more definite; but 
they are really threatening an irreparable injury to our language. 
Mr. Elliott exhibited a notation for various fundamental 
terms in physics and electricity, force being designated by m a, 
the symbols for mass and acceleration. 
After Mr. Elliott’s remarks, and in response to the President’s 
comments on the parallelogram of forces, so called, Mr. Bates 
said : 
I regard the use of the term force in the parallelogram of forces as com¬ 
ing under Newton’s “ vis impressa ” and relating to the manifestation of 
mass under the first law of motion. The resultant is the expression of 
the second law of motion, exemplifying the relativity of motion and the 
independence of vires impressx. The parallelogram is a purely intellectual 
notion—a sort of mental scaffold by which we aid conception, having no 
real existence. 
42d Meeting. May 2, 1888. 
The Chairman presided. 
Present ten members and guests. 
The minutes of the 41st meeting were read and approved. 
Mr. W. B. Taylor read a paper on A Question in Mathemati¬ 
cal Nomenclature, of which the following is an abstract: 
[Abstract.] 
Mr. Taylor in criticising the terms “ square ” and “ cube,” commonly 
used to designate algebraic second and third powers—a usage probably due 
to the convenient conciseness of the expressions, and probably also to a 
latent sentiment of their greater definiteness—thought that the evils of 
such mis-nomer were twofold : First, the vague suggestion of some geo¬ 
metrical significance in such expressions as “ the squares of the disturbing 
forces,” employed in discussions of planetary perturbations; “ mass multi¬ 
plied by the square of the velocity,” in dynamical problems, and ‘‘ the 
product of the masses divided by the square of the radius,” in celestial 
mechanics. In the latter case the general use of the symbol r 2 suggested 
the further error that a radial emanation is involved, and it was contended 
that the symbol d for distance simply should always be used in preference 
to the customary r for radius. And the second evil was the false indue- 
