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"Nutation" Quotes from Famous Books

... vacuum; but in air the couple due to a sidelong motion tends to place the axis at right angles to the tangent of the trajectory, and acting on a rotating body causes the axis to precess about the tangent. At the same time the frictional drag damps the nutation and causes the axis of the shot to follow the tangent of the trajectory very closely, the point of the shot being seen to be slightly above and to the right of the tangent, with a right-handed twist. The effect is as if there was a mean sidelong thrust w tan [delta] on the shot ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

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... plants. The most widely prevalent movement is essentially of the same nature as that of the stem of a climbing plant, which bends successively to all points of the compass, so that the tip revolves. This movement has been called by Sachs "revolving nutation;" but we have found it much more convenient to use the terms circumnutation and circumnutate. As we shall have to say much about this movement, it will be useful here briefly to describe its nature. If we observe a circumnutating stem, which happens at the ...

— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

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... proof of the earth's motion by observing the annual parallax of stars. He certainly found an annual variation of zenith distance, but not at the times of year required by the parallax. This led him to the discovery of the "aberration" of light and of nutation. Bradley has been described as the founder of the modern system of accurate observation. He died in 1762, leaving behind him thirteen folio volumes of valuable but unreduced observations. Those relating to the stars were reduced by Bessel and published ...

— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

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Words linked to "Nutation" : nutate, nod