Excerpt from A Treatise on the Stability of a Given State of Motion, Particularly Steady Motion: Being the Essay to Which the Adams Prize Was Adjudged in 1877, in the University of Cambridge The Examiners give notice that the following is the subject of the Prize to be adjudged in 1877 The Criterion of Dynamical Stability. To illustrate the meaning Of the question imagine a particle to slide down inside a smooth inclined cylinder along the lowest generating line, or to slide down outside along the highest generating line. In the former case a slight derangement of the motion would merely cause the particle to oscillate about the generating line, while in the latter case the particle would depart from the generating line altogether. The motion in the former case would be, in the sense of the question, stable, in the latter unstable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.