Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Momentum   Listen
noun
Momentum  n.  (pl. L. momenta, F. momentums)  
1.
(Mech.) The quantity of motion in a moving body, being always proportioned to the quantity of matter multiplied by the velocity; impetus.
2.
Essential element, or constituent element. "I shall state the several momenta of the distinction in separate propositions."
3.
A property of an activity or course of events, viewed as analogous to forward motion or to physical momentum (def. 1), such that the activity is believed to be able to continue moving forward without further application of force or effort; often used to describe an increase in the acquisition of public support for a purpose; as, as, the petition drive gained momentum when it was mentioned in the newspapers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Momentum" Quotes from Famous Books



... her with a half-smiling wistfulness, as if he would be glad enough to take her tone, were the thing only possible. But for such a juncture as this he had little initiative and less momentum, and he realized it all ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... the bank to cover Sakay when he should rise. Leaning over the ledge he distinguished the white-clad figure sliding gracefully through the dark depths with the momentum of the dive: ten feet, twenty, thirty, then ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The House of Fame and other minor poems are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouveres, but the Canterbury Tales give us the first ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... engineer makes a run for a hill in order that the momentum of his train will help carry him over. It is not so with a traction and its load; the momentum that you get don't push ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard

... faces—which of course altered somewhat, as they matured—were acquiring a kind of likeness; or, rather, were exchanging expressions. Silverthorn's grew rounder and brightened a degree in color; his glance had less momentum in it; he looked more commonplace and contented. On the other hand, Vibbard, through mental exertion (for he had lately been studying hard) and the society of his junior, had modified the inertia of his own expression. The strength of his features ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... Windermere, like Wilson at Oxford, was versatile, active, Titanic, mysterious, and fascinating. An immense energy and momentum marked the man; and a strange fitfulness, a lack of concentration, made the sum total of results far too small. There was power; but much of it was power wasted. He overflowed everywhere; his magnificent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... range, and then, instead of dashing in at full speed, to stop our engines—the throb of which was loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance on a quiet night—and head directly for our quarry, discharging our torpedoes when the momentum or "way" of the boat had carried her as far as she would go, trusting to the subsequent confusion to enable us to escape unscathed. I had fully explained this view of mine to the Admiral, and had obtained his sanction to put my ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... this was another attack, as violent and impetuous as the first. But his fury was in the way. He struck wildly, not measuring his blows, and Dick had no difficulty in turning aside, so that his antagonist's blow fell upon the empty air, and his momentum was such that he nearly fell forward headlong. Dick might readily have taken advantage of his unsteadiness, and knocked him down; but he was not vindictive, and chose to act on the defensive, except when he could not ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... Yuba Bill dashed through a part of it, and by skillful maneuvering circumvented the rest. But even as the obstacle was passed, the coach dropped with an ominous lurch on one side, and the off fore wheel flew off in the darkness. Bill threw the horses back on their haunches; but, before their momentum could be checked, the near hind wheel slipped away, the vehicle rocked violently, plunged backwards and ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... for a couple of days, with the momentum they've got," answers the inventor. "And for two or three hours, that 'ud keep her ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... their source high up in the mountains of God, fed by a ceaseless supply. Only so can there be the purity, and the momentum that shall keep us pure, and keep us moving down in contact with men of the earth. And we must keep closer to the source than is the Rhone at Geneva, else the streams flowing alongside will unduly influence us. Constant personal contact ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... glass windows had reached almost to the ground, so that the automobile with its great momentum had easily surmounted the sills and reached nearly the middle of the store. One wheel had been torn off, the windshield was shattered into fragments, and the front of the ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... then inverted, a feeble action at the needle was observed. Inverting the helix ten or twelve times, and at such periods that the deflecting forces exerted by the currents of electricity produced in it should be added to the momentum of the needle (39.), the latter was soon made to vibrate through an arc of 80 deg. or 90 deg.. Here, therefore, currents of electricity were produced by the direct inductive power of the earth's magnetism, without the use of any ferruginous matter, and upon a ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... Bartley's help, in this new trap. Mary dashed off without a moment's hesitation at the quick-set hedge; she did not run up to it and hesitate like a woman, for it was not to be wriggled through; she went at it with the momentum and impetus of a race-horse, and through it as if it was made of blotting-paper, leaving a wonderfully small hole, but some shreds of her dress, and across the meadow at a pace that neither Bartley nor Monckton, men past their ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... Buddha[17] is not a proper name, but a common adjective meaning enlightened, from the root to know, perceive, etc. They made constant and marvellous additions to the primitive doctrine, giving it a momentum which gathered force as the centuries went on; and, as propaganda, it moved against ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... were eager to get after it in the boats; but Captain Rogers knew a better way than that to attack a lone whale. We reefed down again and left little canvas exposed while the Scarboro kept on her tack under the momentum she had already gathered. The captain went forward where the gun had been made ready. He swung it about on its pivot and got the range of ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... this great institution that it ran smoothly and without apparent loss of momentum for the nine months out of the twelve, during the greater part of which he was obliged to be absent raising the funds with which to keep it going. The Institute is in continuous session throughout the twelve months of the year. During the summer months a summer school for teachers is conducted ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... evident that much greater accuracy of measurement of maximum pressures can be obtained by the minimum movement of the pointer, as both the inertia and the momentum are reduced to the minimum quantity. The subsidence of pressure resulting from explosives being about as sudden as the creation of pressure, causes the pointer to move too rapidly for correct ocular observation, on which account a static electric current is employed, causing a stream ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... morning, midday or sunset rambles, and often dominate the landscape in a way I never before thought of—fill the long lane, not by scores or hundreds only, but by thousands. Large and vivacious and swift, with wonderful momentum and a loud swelling, perpetual hum, varied now and then by something almost like a shriek, they dart to and fro, in rapid flashes, chasing each other, and (little things as they are,) conveying to me a new and pronounc'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only Belgian army ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... score a single point. The ball seemed for a time as if it were awing forever, and would fall to the ground no more. The casualties were many; almost always after one of those sudden rushes together of both factions that had a tremendous momentum as of galloping squadrons, the ground would show as the moving masses receded half a dozen figures prone upon the course; one with a broken arm perhaps; another badly snapped by the inartistically plied ball-sticks of friend or foe and crawling off with a bloody pate; sometimes ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... non-Arab southern Sudanese. The first civil war ended in 1972, but broke out again in 1983. The second war and famine-related effects resulted in more than 2 million deaths and over 4 million people displaced over a period of two decades. Peace talks gained momentum in 2002-04 with the signing of several accords; a final Naivasha peace treaty of January 2005 granted the southern rebels autonomy for six years, after which a referendum for independence is scheduled to be held. A separate conflict that broke out in the western ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... into the laws of nature and into the arts of civilized life, and we have the further satisfaction of remembering that as year after year flows by, and your population increases, all those beneficial influences will acquire additional strength and momentum. I hope you are duly grateful to him to whom, under Providence, you are indebted for all these benefits, and that when you contrast your own condition, the peace in which you live, the comforts that surround you, the decency of your habitation, when you see your wives, your sisters, ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... run and loosed the halliards. The canvas fluttered down on the deck with a rustle and crash. The catboat sprang to even keel, but shot on under the momentum it had gained in swooping down upon ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... stick came with a rush, bunted these others powerfully so that they began to slide with the momentum thus imparted, slowly at first then, gathering way and speed, they shot down to the lake and plunged to the water over the ten-foot jump-off like a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... moment of excitement and yields to a momentary passion to lynch a prisoner, or a revolutionary mob that loots and burns out of a sheer desire for destruction. Such a group has not even the value of a safety-valve, for its passion gathers momentum as it goes, and, like a conflagration, it cannot be stopped until it has burned itself out or met a solid wall of ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... rich city of Lille by the Germans was well under way, indicating that they contemplated a reluctant evacuation of the most important center in northern France. At all events, an immediate ebb in the German tide was necessitated by the British successes of April 9 to 16. The momentum of Field Marshal Haig's advance and the successes of the French on their share of the western front appeared to make a further retirement of the whole German line imperative—and the great Allied drive ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... manifestation of human selfishness and greed; without a single redeeming trait—simply an unmitigated evil: a two-edged weapon, cutting and maiming both ways, up and down—the master perhaps even more than the slave; a huge evil committed, reacting in evil, in the exact degree of its hugeness and momentum. Yes! this great antagonist was slavery—an institution long thrown out of European life; a relic of the lowest barbarism and savagism, the very antipodes of freedom, and flourishing best only in the rudest forms of society; but now rearing its ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... act as arbiter between the temperance and nontemperance groups. She did not underestimate the momentum which the well-organized W.C.T.U. had already given the suffrage cause, particularly in states where the National Association had only a few and scattered workers. She needed and wanted the help of these temperance women and of Frances ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... care to name pass current with me. The master key is in my possession tight. I can choose my tools for whatever I wish done from a multitude. The material is limitless, for I can pay. Besides, as I said before, this power is increasing inevitably, whether I'm asleep or awake, growing by its own momentum. I have it at last, yes; but it neither is nor ever was what I wanted most, Elice. I said I wanted it, you're right; but I never said I wanted it most. You know what I want most in ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... Muses, in Boeotia; in the ten commandments on stone delivered by Moses; and in the laws of Solon, inscribed on planks of wood. The notion of a literary production surviving the destruction of the materials on which it was first written—the 'momentum, aere perennius' of Horace's ambition—was unknown before the discovery of ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... performances were not yet over. The Speeds might be hard to get started, but once they were started their momentum was irresistible. When Theodora and Mr. Sherman came out, Ludovic was waiting on the steps. He stood up straight and stern, with his head thrown back and his shoulders squared. There was open defiance in the look he cast on his rival, and masterfulness ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... of military elite and an Islamist party that came to power in a 1989 coup. Some northern opposition parties have made common cause with the southern rebels and entered the war as a part of an anti-government alliance. Peace talks gained momentum in 2002-03 with the signing of several accords, including a ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... high in the air describing its huge circles for six hours without once flapping its wings. He says that, if the bird wished to descend, the wings were for a moment collapsed; and when again expanded, with an altered inclination, the momentum gained by the rapid descent seemed to urge the bird upwards with the even and steady movement of a paper kite. In the case of any bird soaring, its motion must be sufficiently rapid for the action ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... the last ounce. More than that, he had something left for the final quarter, though his rider had not expected to draw upon that reserve so soon. The Ghost spurted, for a time maintaining his advantage. Then, annihilating incredible distances with his long, awkward strides and gathering increased momentum with every one, Elisha drew alongside. Again the Ghost was called on and responded, but the best he had left and all he had left, was barely sufficient to enable him to hold his own. Opposite the paddock inclosure, with the grand stand ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... gambling halls of the town. And when the blizzard was spent, and the cold stars were dropping their frozen light, these dull-witted things began to move, slowly at first, circling about like a great forming nebula, but gaining momentum and power with each revolution. More than a thousand strong, they circled out into the frozen streets of the little town, and up along the main thoroughfare. Their dull murmurs slowly gained volume. Their low curses welled into a roar. And then, like the sudden ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... probable proportion of rock dropped by sea ice compared to land glaciers is new to me. I have often thought of the idea of the viscosity and enormous momentum of great icebergs, and still think that the notion I pointed out in appendix to Ramsay's paper is probable, and can hardly help being applicable in some cases. (502/2. The paper by Ramsay has no appendix; probably, therefore Mr. Darwin's notes ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... said Momentum. "When perhaps by a gust of air the Aeroplane is blown out of its course and points in another direction, it doesn't immediately fly off on that new course. I'm so strong I pull it off the new course to a certain extent, and towards the direction ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber

... Sitgreaves, following up a previous position, "if you cut upwards, the blow, by losing the additional momentum of your weight, will be less destructive, and at the same time effect the true purpose of war, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the train bearing Black Bruin's van pulled out. One by one the cars bumped over the switch and the long train got under way. At first the locomotive puffed and panted as though the load were too great for it, but finally the train got up momentum and the car-wheels sang their old song of rat-a-clat-rat-a-clat-rat-a-tat-tat, while the engine assumed its ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... returned to power in 1822, he was no longer an ultra-conservative, but a liberal. He now made no disguise of his sympathies with the cause of Greece, and with the struggle for independence in South and Central America. There the course of freedom had gathered so much momentum that it was plain to all that Spain could never prevail without help from others. In Mexico, upon the refusal of Ferdinand VII. to accept the separate crown of Mexico, General Iturbide proclaimed himself emperor. On May 19, he assumed the dignity. As Augustine ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... engine and the roaring sound died away. The boat fell off in speed, but still pushed ahead with good momentum. For perhaps a mile the boat advanced. Then the driver shut ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... be instructive to turn backward the telescope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science as planted in the pathway of this generation; to note the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity—that the sick are healed and sinners saved, not ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... since they had left their own lines. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the engine stopped. Bob switched off the power, switched it on again, and repeated the maneuver again and again while volplaning to preserve their momentum. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll

... lust, pride, avarice, vanity, selfishness, cowardice, or any other of the lower propensities, is indeed ignoble, if measured by the standard of true manhood. The Chela is not only called to face all the latent evil propensities of his nature, but, in addition, the momentum of maleficent forces accumulated by the community and nation to which he belongs. For he is an integral part of those aggregates, and what affects either the individual man or the group (town or nation), reacts the one upon the other. And in this instance his struggle for ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... the man whose genius discovered the means of multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps even beyond his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination; bringing the treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth—giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite—commanding manufactures to arise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert—affording the means of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man, and of sailing without that wind which defied the commands and ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... positions in the street and started. The Chairman of the Great Eastern romped home. We are all of us creatures of our environment, and we may become unconsciously coloured by that environment; as the Great Eastern Railway has always adopted a go-ahead policy, it is possible that some particle of the momentum which would naturally result from this may have been subconsciously absorbed by the Chairman, thus giving him an unfair advantage over his brothers. It is unusual for a Duke, a Chairman of an important Railway Company, and a Secretary of State to run races ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... The people who start to elect a man to get what he can for his district will probably find they have elected a man who will get what he can for himself. A body will keep on its course for a time after the moving impulse ceases by reason of its momentum. The men who founded our government had fought and thought mightily on the relationship of man to his government. Our institutions would go for a time under the momentum they gave. But we should be deluded if we supposed they can be maintained without more of the same stern ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... is a centrifugal motion crusher with one roller only, which, by an ingenious application of motive force, revolves in an opposite direction to its initial momentum, and which evolves a force of 6000 lb. against the tire, which is only 30 inches in diameter. For hard quartz the size should be increased by at least 6 inches. It is claimed for this mill that it will pulverise to a gauge of 900 holes to the square inch from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tons per hour, or, say ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... stop it!" gasped Gora; and that terrific red mass of energy and momentum did look as if its only curb would ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... are not a nimble-minded people. They cannot, to use a familiar metaphor, turn round in their own length. Their momentum is such as to carry them on for some distance in the direction wherein they have been moving, even after the order to stop has been given. They need time to appreciate, digest, and comprehend a new proposition. Timid they are not, nor, perhaps, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... slid down at tremendous speed; suddenly I saw them fly through the air, and then land below on their skees. They had leaped over the gully. Then they continued their course faster than before, on account of the momentum of the leap, and as they reached the bottom of the hill they made another leap in the air, which took them over the river to the plain beyond. After going a little further, for they could not stop at once, they came to a halt. Then returning they examined the leaps, to ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... it was to her a dire need that her mate should have fire, because half-consciously she divined that only fire purified and sanctified the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Half-heartedness here, or the lack of a great passionate momentum, that carried everything before it, spelt to her something distinctly discomfiting, not to say indecent. And in this, far from being a romantic idealist, she was entirely right and realistic. This explains why her taste inclined more resolutely ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... And Garrone nibbled at his bread in silence; but he no longer attacks it with the cheery bites of old, poor Garrone! now that he has lost his mother. But he is always as good as bread himself. When one of us ran back to obtain the momentum for leaping a ditch, he ran to the other side, and held out his hands to us; and as Precossi was afraid of cows, having been tossed by one when a child, Garrone placed himself in front of him every time ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... minutes of the energy of position we had so laboriously gained by toiling up the other side. Over the bridge we rattled, bowled along the level stretch, and then into the gorge and once more down, till in another ten minutes the last fall had shot us out into the plain with mental momentum enough to carry us hilariously into Imaisurugi, where we put up for the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... many of the Loyalists felt with regard to the justice of the position taken up by the British government greatly weakened the hands of the Loyalist party in the early stages of the Revolution. It was only as the Revolution gained momentum that the party grew in vigour and numbers. A variety of factors contributed to this result. In the first place there were the excesses of the revolutionary mob. When the mob took to sacking private houses, driving clergymen ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace

... catching the coat of the man in the water with his boathook, and holding on tenaciously. Jack, meanwhile, turned his engine backward, so that the momentum of ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... even soon go: would we were all as sure of the Millennium as they are of going! They go swiftly in these present months; with an increase of velocity, an ever-deepening, ever-widening sweep of momentum, truly notable. It is at the Aristocracy's own damage and peril, still more than at any other's whatsoever, that the Aristocracy maintains them;—at a damage, say only, as above computed, of a 'hundred thousand pounds ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... was in operation it went ahead of its own momentum. Both men grabbed what food and sleep they could. The computers gulped down Neel's figures and spat out tape-reels of answers that demanded even more facts. Costa and his unseen helpers were kept ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... shooting high purposely. He wanted merely to frighten their pursuers into desisting. Then the car gathered momentum, and was soon out of range. Presently Frank, who had been driving the flivver as fast as it would go, with the result that they were all tossed about while the car lurched precariously over the rutted road, slowed down to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... this ideal momentum in the observation of the organic kingdoms is not only the most beautiful blossom and the ripest fruit of the union between {36} laborious and comprehensive detailed investigations and a generalizing philosophic penetration, but it was also a very efficient preparation of the mind for the ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... as he did so, a mass of rock weighing fully a dozen tons, fell upon the precise spot where he had stood, missing him so narrowly that the blast of wind, or rather concussion of the air, was plainly felt. The boulder broke into several pieces, its momentum being so terrific that the ground for several feet around was jarred as ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... uttered with a heartiness that showed how powerfully this gleam of hope acted on their spirits; but a new damp was cast over them when, on gaining the open passage, they discovered that the bergs were not at rest, but were bearing down on the floe-ice with slow but awful momentum, and threatened to crush the ship between the two. Just then a low berg came driving up from the southward, dashing the spray over its sides, and with its fore-head ploughing up the smaller ice as if in scorn. A happy thought ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... glide. While he was searching for a convenient landing place the sparking ceased altogether. The whole country was rugged; below, almost wholly forest land as far as the eye could reach; above, bare rocks or scrub, and at the greatest altitude, snow. The aeroplane flew on for a little by its own momentum, and Smith wasted a few painful seconds before, despairing of finding level ground, he began to descend in a ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... never have time to climb it before the team was upon them, and urged him to a lope. She glanced back again, saw that the team was not running away, that they were trying to hold the wagon, and that it was gaining momentum in ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but sufficient ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... was only fifteen yards away. Dink had thought out quickly what he would do. He crept in closer than an end usually plays and at the snap of the ball rushed straight into the starting interference before it could gather dangerous momentum. The back, seeing him thus drawn in, instinctively swerved wide around his interference, forced slightly back. Before he could turn forward his own speed and the necessity of distancing Stover and Condit drove him out of ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... Should she call out? One last bon voyage? The sound of a voice floated upward; a hard, rasping voice, unfamiliar, yet strangely familiar. In the leading canoe the Indians ceased paddling. The canoe lost momentum and drifted broadside to the current. The men were lifting something; something long and dark. There was a muffled splash, and the dark object disappeared. The canoemen picked up their paddles, and the canoe ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... therefore, always produces a definite and corresponding effect on any moving body, however that force may be originated, and however it may be applied. The effect so produced is always a change of motion, or, in present scientific terms, a change of momentum in the moving body. If the impressed force is halved, by an alteration in the mass of the body which exerts the impressed force, then the resultant momentum produced is halved also. If the impressed force is doubled, through any alteration in the velocity ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... life weakened in intensity; and just as, according to physical laws, the ray of light becomes less and less intense by the square of the distance from the central source, so the vital ray, or vis, loses momentum in the same ratio as it diverges from the common ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... the Incas offered no resistance whatever. The momentum of our assault carried them to the ground; their heads struck the hard granite with fearful force ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... a wave of his hand to Mr. Swift and the housekeeper, who stood in the door to see him off, Tom jumped into the saddle, started the machine, and then, after sufficient momentum had been attained, he turned on the gasolene and set the spark lever. With rattles and bangs, which were quickly subdued by the muffler, the machine gathered speed. Tom was ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... murky, girdered ceiling still three hundred feet above him. The swelling, curving, glittering surface of steel underneath. Then he struck. He landed beside the lean man, with his left arm outstretched to share his impetus with him. Alone, he would have had momentum enough to carry himself up the slope down which the man had begun to descend. But now he shared it. The two of them toppled forward together. Their arms were upon the flat surface, while their bodies dangled. The feel of gravity pulling ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... Fred ran down the sail and the boat drifted in with its own momentum, while Lester took soundings cautiously to find the best place to cast anchor. The Ariel was of light draught, and, with the centerboard up, found three feet of water ample ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... the air had weight was received with incredulity. For ages the air had propelled ships, thrust itself against the bodies of men, and overturned their works. But no man ever dreamed that weight was necessary to give momentum. During all the centuries it had stood in the Bible, waiting for man's comprehension: "He gave to the air its ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... spectators. The bear, dragging the dead bull, rushed at the living, who, unmartial at first, stiffened to the defensive as he saw a bulk of wiry fur set with eyes of fire, almost upon him. He sprang aside, lowered his horn and caught the bear in the chest. But the victor was a compact mass of battle and momentum. His onslaught flung the bear over backward, and quickly disengaging himself he made another leap at his equally agile enemy. This time the battle was longer and more various, for the bull was smaller, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... prospect of warm work and plenty of it. For the life of me I can't tell you how the battle began. Our men came forward in an irregular manner, rushing onward impetuously, halting unnecessarily, with no master mind directing. It seemed at first as if the mere momentum of the march carried us under the enemy's fire; and then there was foolish delay. By the aid of my powerful glass I was convinced that we might have walked right over the first thin Rebel line on ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... only chance, when again came the ominous rattle: Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness. Two only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum, Upright, erect, and sustained on ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... engines had not stopped the momentum of the ship when Alan reached the open deck. She was fighting, but still swept slowly ahead against the force struggling to hold her back. He heard running feet, voices, and the rattle of davit blocks, and came up as the ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... It is proved by numerous facts, both natural and of artificial production, that agencies which had been regarded as distinct and independent sources of force—heat, electricity, chemical action, nervous and muscular action, momentum of moving bodies—are interchangeable, in definite and fixed quantities, with one another. It had long been known that these dissimilar phenomena had the power, under certain conditions, of producing one another: what ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... armature. As this moves towards the poles of the magnet it breaks the circuit by drawing the contact spring, q. v., away from the contact point, q. v. This opens the circuit, to whose continuity the contact of these two parts is essential. The hammer, however, by its momentum strikes the bell and at once springs back. This again makes the contact and the hammer is reattracted. This action continues as long as the circuit is closed at any distant point to which it may be carried. The ordinary vibrating bell ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... up Oneida Street, he used to pedal faster and faster,—he never meant to, but he couldn't help it,—till he went past the piazza where Zena was sitting at an awful speed with his little yellow blazer flying in the wind. In a second he had disappeared in a buzz and a cloud of dust, and the momentum of it carried him clear out into the country for miles and miles before he ever dared ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... found a small tree that had fallen down, and with this as a lever they loosened the rock and it started down the cliff. It moved slowly at first and the boys drew close to the edge to watch its course. Down it dashed, gathering momentum and finally taking along with it into the water a small tree that grew out from the mountain about half way down. In their eagerness to see the splash they went too near to the edge, and the ground began to give way beneath them. ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... four-hundred-and-fifty-second year finding one of my father's farm wagons on the top of the hill back of the cow pasture. I wheeled it to the edge of the descent, and was much delighted to see it go speeding down to the base of the hill, gathering momentum at every turn of the wheels, and ending up by hitting the back door of Uncle Zibb's cottage with such force that it came out of the front parlor window before stopping. This seemed to indicate that under certain circumstances a wheeled vehicle could be made to go without ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... the spiritual momentum necessary to tell you that I'm a thief! Truly. Anyhow, three choice gentlemen are so sure of it that they went to the trouble of perjuring ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... alike do their share in the propulsion of the body, the legs perform by far the most important work, and the importance of a good "kick" cannot be too strongly urged. Though the action of the soles of the feet upon the water helps the "drive," the momentum is also given by the "wedge" of water embraced and driven backwards by the action of the backs of the thighs and calves, as they almost come together at the completion of the leg stroke. Hence, the wider the stretch the more powerful the "drive," and the beginner should ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... it belongs. Don't go trying to touch that switch. Aw, be sensible! What would you do if the car did stop? I could blackjack you both before this swell-elegant vehickle lost momentum, savvy? I don't want to pay out my good money to a lawyer on a charge of—murder. Get me? Better take it easy and not worry." His hand was constantly on the wheel. He had driven cars before. He was steering as much ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... the Spanish War began the Indian summer of life to one who had reached sixty years of age, and cared only to reap in peace such harvest as these sixty years had yielded. He had reason to be more than content with it. Since 1864 he had felt no such sense of power and momentum, and had seen no such number of personal friends wielding it. The sense of solidarity counts for much in one's contentment, but the sense of winning one's game counts for more; and in London, in 1898, the scene was singularly interesting to the last ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... is usually measured by their weight, i.e. by gravity. Its absolute measurement must be in terms of momentum. The true estimate of the Energy of a body moving under the impulse of a constant Force is stated in the formula 1/2MV{2}. To ascertain M, therefore, we must have given F and V, and these are both conceptions the ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... lost two minutes, twenty-eight seconds at Cayenne, which proved that the momentum was less at this place than at Paris. From this fact, Newton and Huyghens deduced the flatness of the Globe at the Poles. Shortly afterwards, however, the computation of a terrestrial degree given by Abbe Picard, and the determination of the Meridional arc, arrived at by the Cassinis, father ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... urged at one time, that the best road would have the grades undulating from one end to the other,—so that the momentum acquired in one descent would carry the train almost over the succeeding ascent; and that very little steam-power would be needed. This idea would have place, at least to a certain extent, if the whole momentum was allowed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... respective motions thus impressed on this medium, exactly balancing one another. And if they do not balance one another the result must be rotation of the whole mass of the medium in one direction. But preponderating momentum in one direction, having caused rotation of the medium in that direction, the rotating medium must in its turn gradually arrest such flocculi as are moving in opposition, and impress its own motion upon them; and thus there will ultimately be formed ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... that, the English have at least shown in the war, to any one who doubted it, that they have not lost the courage and capacity of their fathers, and can carry it through if they will. If they do not do so, if they continue to move only with the dead momentum of the social discipline which we learnt from Germany, there is nothing before us but what Mr. Belloc, the discoverer of this great sociological drift, has called the Servile State. And there are moods in which a man, considering that conclusion of our story, is half inclined to wish that the wave ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... beat his last jump. As he ran, he gathered momentum, gauging the distance carefully, and reaching the mark exactly. The jump was a splendid one, and it was instantly seen that he had actually beaten ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... whereby the steam is expected to rise to a reservoir above. You will notice (Fig. 8) that the upward current of steam and water in the return bend meets and directly antagonizes the upward current in the adjoining tube. Only one result can follow. If their velocities are equal, the momentum of both will be neutralized and all circulation stopped, or, if one be stronger, it will cause a back flow in the other by the amount of difference in force, with practically ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... location, rivaled only by that of Marseilles, and we have now the responsibility to use this natural asset, for which many envy us. The Exposition will start an avalanche of improvements along artistic lines which will be given increasing momentum by the development of long periods ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... to measure him, and drink their fill of terror. The monk was a goodly specimen of manhood, young, tall, strong; but a fig for his chances once this enemy struck him or set its teeth in his flesh! An ox could not stand the momentum of that bulk of bone and brawn. It were vain telling how many—not all of them women and children—furtively studied the height of the wall enclosing the pit to make sure of their own ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... Here were the only rocks to be seen in the vast snow-bed around us. Cautiously we proceed, with cat-like tread, following directly in one another's footsteps, and holding on to our alpenstocks like grim death. A loosened rock would start at first slowly, gain momentum, and fairly fly. Striking against some projecting ledge, it would bound a hundred feet or more into the air, and then drop out of sight among the clouds below. Every few moments we would stop to rest; our knees were like lead, and the high altitude made breathing ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... ignored the trap and the clog in his eagerness to reach the man with his nearest paw, and the impetus of the stroke, aided by the momentum of the circling clog, threw him from his balance. Probably a bullet in the back of the head had its effect also, for the huge bulk of the bear toppled forward and followed Joe ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... ascent of 24 feet in four miles, averaging 1 in 880 up for the whole distance. There were also long and easy curves upon this portion. The train was taken up and purposely stopped on the second mile, to be sure of starting again with no aid from momentum. The average speed was 5 miles an hour, and neither was the pressure of steam increased nor sand used except in starting from the stops purposely made. The engine, even were its full boiler pressure ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... Diablerets, Wildhorn, and Massif de la Breche by Lugeon,[2] or finally Termier's section of the Pelvoux Massif,[3] one is reminded of the breaking of waves on a sloping beach. The wave, retarded at its base, is carried forward above by its momentum, and finally spreads far up on the strand; and if it could there remain, the succeeding wave must necessarily find itself superimposed upon the first. But no effects of inertia, no kinetic effects, may be called to our aid in explaining the formation ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... (whereat the hue and cry redoubled), and sprang into the body of the vehicle. Kirkwood followed, shutting the door. As the cab lurched forward he leaned over and drew down the window-shade, shielding the girl from half a hundred prying eyes. At the same time they gathered momentum, banging swiftly, if loudly out ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... my life. Now, you can put your motion," and, with a couple of quick strides, the alcalde placed himself by the side of the sheriff, near the two prisoners, the two big revolvers held ready for instant use. He knew that the only way to check mob violence was to stop it before it gathered momentum. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... a brief space flourished on the same social level. Mr. Crenshaw's rise in life, however, had been uninterrupted, while Mr. Yancy, wrapped in a philosophic calm and deeply averse to industry, had permitted the momentum imparted by a remote ancestor to carry him where it would, which was steadily away from that tempered prosperity his family had once boasted as members of ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... Hence only he attains to a genuine correctness; he was correct by instinct before he was so by discipline. In the whole as well as the parts he requires finish and proportion. Within him there is a momentum which fills out his thought and its worded envelope to warm convexity. Only he has the fine tact and discernment to know the full meaning of each word he uses. The best style is organic in its details as well as its ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... adapt themselves to women.... It was evident that they prized her verdict, respected her criticism, feared her rebuke, and looked to her as an umpire." In speaking, "her opening was deliberate, like the progress of a massive force gaining its momentum; but as she felt her way, and moving in a congenial element, the sweep of her speech became grand. The style of her eloquence was sententious, free from prettiness, direct, vigorous, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... a weight multiplied by its velocity; that is, in marine dynamics, by its distance from a point determined as the centre of momentum; or from a line called the axis ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... has become such a bromide one hates to pronounce it. But of course the commonplace that all dreams are expressions of suppressed desires is true. And it's very apparent that Mrs. Crittenden's desire is a very fine one for freedom and power and momentum. She's evidently not a back-water personality. Though one would hardly need psycho-analysis to guess that!" He changed the subject as masterfully as Neale could have done. "See here, Mrs. Crittenden, that Tschaikowsky whetted my appetite for more. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the aid of a pulley, to the ceiling of the room, and thence suddenly let fall on the stomach of the patient. This stone weighed, it is true, fifty pounds only; but, descending from a great height, its effect was immensely increased by the momentum it acquired in falling, as soon as the cord was detached by which it was suspended in the air.' And, in truth, the ribs of the convulsionist bent under the terrible shock, sinking under the weight till her stomach and bowels were so completely flattened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... pointed out. Thus the Act of Parliament enjoining the registration of births, would be equally a law although no births were ever registered; whereas the law, that in a body moving in consequence of pressure the momentum generated is in proportion to the pressure, would entirely forfeit its legal character if, on any one occasion or in any circumstances, momentum were generated in any other proportion. It is essential, then, to the existence of a scientific law that there should be ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... rush toward it as it hit the ground. Of its own momentum it rolled to within a two minutes' run of where the lieutenant and the others had been standing. In another instant it was entirely surrounded by a crowd of ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... the little car which two others pushed along the track of the narrow-gauge railroad. We were guarded by four civilian Germans of some home defense corps, all of whom labored with us. The two trammers used to start the car, hop on the brake behind and let it run of its own momentum down the incline to the edge of the bank where it would be checked for dumping. Sometimes we forgot to brake the car so that it would ricochet on in a flying leap off the end of the track, and so on over the dump. The guards would rage and swear but could prove ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... ahead she leaped. Ere the destroyer had gained full momentum her bow struck something under the water. Men were thrown from their feet by force of the shock, and the destroyer ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... twenties that the actual momentum of life begins to slacken, and it is a simple soul indeed to whom as many things are significant and meaningful at thirty as at ten years before. At thirty an organ-grinder is a more or less moth-eaten man who grinds an organ—and once he ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... The momentum of intellectual interest is not lost in the eleventh century. Paris becomes its most ardent center, with Reims, Orleans, and Fleury also of note. The Codex Parisinus belongs to this period. German activity, too, is at its height, especially in the education of boys for the ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... passage of some of the tunnels occupying upwards of an hour. In some cases, however, the tunnels are provided with a narrow tow-path running through them, which, of course, greatly facilitates the passage, as when once momentum is obtained, a man and a boy can tow a barge ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes

... ivory, to the left. At the Vesper Club, always up-to-date, the ball was of platinum, not of ivory. The disc with its sloping sides is provided with a number of brass rods, some perpendicular, some horizontal. As the ball and the wheel lose momentum the ball strikes against the rods and finally is deflected into one of the many little pockets or stalls facing the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... the uneven ground, momentum increasing with every jump, until, accurately calculating his speed and the changing distance between us, I rose with a mighty leap, sailed into the air and came down—just an inch too far ahead—on a round stone, turned my ankle, and went sprawling ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... bold statements of Major as a blow at the very heart of true Lutheranism, Amsdorf antagonized his teaching as a "most pernicious error," and denounced Major as a Pelagian and a double Papist. But, alas, the momentum of his uncontrolled zeal carried him a step too far—over the precipice. He declared that good works are detrimental and injurious to salvation, bona opera perniciosa (noxia) esse ad salutem. He defended his ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... He calls his country, not only the Land of Promise, but the Land of Destiny. It is fairly launched on a brilliant and successful career, the continued prosperity of which is prophesied by the very momentum of its advance. As Mr. H.G. Wells says in "The Future in America," "When one talks to an American of his national purpose, he seems a little at a loss; if one speaks of his national destiny, he responds with alacrity." The great majority ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... to the rescue, accompanied by the flight-commander and the remaining British machine. Just as you arrive old X's bus drops forward and down, spinning as it goes. It falls slowly at first, but seems to gather momentum; the spin becomes wilder and wilder, the drop faster ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... he called loudly, defiantly, perhaps. He owed Burroughs nothing. But as a rolling stone gathers momentum, so did this unexpected addition to the new name on the list of candidates give impetus to a stampede which soon made itself understood, as much to the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... where the effect depends on what is signified more than on what is offered to sense. Any appeal to a human interest rebounds in favour of a work of art in which it is successfully made. That interest, unaesthetic in itself, helps to fix the attention and to furnish subject-matter and momentum to arts and modes of appreciation which are aesthetic. Thus comprehension of the passion of love is necessary to the appreciation of numberless songs, plays, and novels, and not a few works of ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... recent years, its reconciliation and cooperation with Germany have proved central to the economic integration of Europe, including the introduction of the euro in January 2002. At present, France is at the forefront of European states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... running wants to neutralise the impetus that carries him on he prepares a contrary impetus which is generated by his hanging backwards. This can be proved, since, if the impetus carries a moving body with a momentum equal to 4 and the moving body wants to turn and fall back with a momentum of 4, then one momentum neutralises the other contrary one, and the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... a half-suppressed howl, his momentum carrying him halfway up Professor Boomly's person. Then, losing foothold, he fell to the floor and began to kick in the general direction of Professor Boomly. It was a sorrowful sight to see these two celebrated scientists panting, mauling, scuffling and punching each other around ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... planes. The deflective repulsion exhibited by B will, when its circuit is completed by the commutator and brushes, as described, act to place its plane at right angles to that of C; but being then open-circuited, its momentum carries it to the position just past parallelism, at which moment it is again short-circuited, and so on. It is capable of very rapid rotation, but its energy is small. I have, however, extended the principle to the construction of more complete apparatus. One form has its revolving ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... and he opened the throttle. Like knight tilting against knight, wave and engine met. There was a hissing as of the plunging of a great red-hot bar into a vat. A roaring sheet of water, thrown into the air by our momentum, washed cab and tender and car, as a billow pours over a laboring ship; and we stood on the steps, drenched to the skin, the water swirling about our ankles as we rushed forward. Then we heard the scream of triumph from the whistle, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... smiled grimly as she fluffed up her bang with her hat-pin. She drew up a second cosey rocking-chair near her aunt's, drew out her needle and crochet-work, and as the steel hook flashed in and out, her tongue soon acquired its accustomed momentum. ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... not even give the men a chance to draw, so quickly were we upon them. With a single cut I struck down two in the front rank. And then by the mere weight and momentum of my body, I rushed completely through the two remaining ranks and sprang upon the dais beside ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... The first uprising momentum of the whale—modifying its direction as he struck the surface—involuntarily launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... statement may be made with an intensity that counterbalances the weight of the larger treatment. It might be said that the one has great velocity and little mass, while the other has great mass and little velocity. By hurling forth the smaller mass at a higher velocity, the momentum may be as great as when the larger mass moves with little velocity. The dynamic force of burning words may give an emphasis to a paragraph out of all proportion to the length of treatment. In one paragraph Macaulay dashes aside all the defenses ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... indeed fallen. For a moment the two figures, flung by the momentum of their pace, slid over the ice. There came a wild shout from those ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... time since he began his work of forming the corporation Gorham gave himself up to day-dreams. Sitting back in an easy-chair in his library he watched the smoke curl upward from his cigar, and gave his mind free rein. With the momentum now acquired, nothing could stem the triumphal advance. The business scope had extended nearly as far as he would let it go—he would confine it to public utilities and public necessities. In the future, it might break beyond the confines he had set for it, and even become the single employer ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... immortal rest with the 'Gloria in excelsis,' a few scholars might foresee, even as that Baeda did, that their living actual work was but the beginning of their triumphant course through the ages,—the momentum. But the masses of the nations, crude and selfish, have had no such prescience, no such intent. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!' That has been the pass, if not the password, ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson

... To alight with an airplane the pilot—supposing his descent to be voluntary and not compelled by accident or otherwise—surveys the country about him for a level field, big and clear enough for the machine to run off its momentum in a run of perhaps two hundred yards on its wheels. Then he gets up a good rate of speed, points the nose of the 'plane down at a sharp angle to the ground, cuts off the engine, and glides. The angle ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... when she was worried. Malone leaned over and kissed her with great care. After a second, the kiss seemed to gain momentum on its own, and all restraint went by the wayside. A long ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... exceedingly unlikely. They have therefore adopted the opinion, that the sudden blazing out of the star was occasioned by the violent precipitation of some mighty mass, perhaps a planet, upon the globe of that remote sun, 'by which the momentum of the falling mass would be changed into molecular motion, or in other words into heat and light.' It might even be supposed, they urge, that the star in the Crown, by its swift motion, may have come in contact with one of the star clouds which exist in large numbers ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... reached the river; and such was its momentum, that, notwithstanding the bridge was burned, the engine and the first car leaped over the first pier in the stream, and the cars hung suspended. While this destruction was going on, Smith's division ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... felt the impulse to tell him all she knew and all her plans. But a medley of motives worked together to restrain her. There was the momentum of her old decision to keep silent. There was the knowledge that, though he loved her as a woman, he still held her in low esteem as a lawyer. There was the instinct that what she knew, if saved, might in some way serve her when they two fought their battle. And there was the thrilling dream ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... dislodged from its aerial support by the gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumbling of the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and, falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in its resistless momentum, a broad opening to ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... memory, but I refer more particularly to the mighty influence exerted by the vast numbers, unrecognized upon the theatre of national reputation, which the college has sent into all the spheres of activity and duty. When I think of the vast momentum for good which has originated here, and is now in unchecked progress, and must extend beyond all the limits of conception, I cannot help feeling that it is a great and precious privilege to be in some way identified as a member ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... afterwards segment into drops which fly off and subside (see Fig. 8), to be followed by a second series which again subside (Fig. 11), to be again succeeded by a third set. In fact, so long as there is any downward momentum the drop and the air behind it are penetrating the liquid, and so long must there be an upward flow of displaced liquid. Much of this flow is seen to be directed into the arms along the channels ...
— The Splash of a Drop • A. M. Worthington

... and cheer began on the day of the fire, and seems to have acquired added momentum with the passing months. Clothes, books, money, were loaned as a matter of course. By half past nine o'clock in the morning, the secretary of the dean had written out from memory the long schedule of the June examinations, to be ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... the fourteenth century gave way to the religious madness of the sixteenth. Men's ideas were changing, and it is a very dangerous thing to change the ideas of men. For the momentum of the change is out of all proportion to its importance, and the barriers of human reason may melt before it. It is a mere matter of historical fact that no oppression has half the dangers of an obvious reform. At Ypres the Reformers were first ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... powerful tail, depressed his sharp snout, sucked a long breath, and we darted forward simultaneously. There was a cracking as of bones forced together, and my cranium seemed to split. We shot out of the density into lighter water, and the momentum carried us fifty ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... a new opposition coalition formed, headed by the Mind. Fortunately, they helped. I'd hesitated on one last point. Pushed. I gambled the momentum of the initial ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins

... part of the line were nearly equal, with the Germans having a slight advantage in numbers. But to make up for this, the Americans had the advantage of the attack and the tremendous momentum with which they had struck ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... was barely reached when the bull was upon him with lowered head and erect tail. It was an awful rush, but Hockins stood like a rock with the cutlass pointed. At the pre-arranged moment he stepped to one side, but instead of letting the momentum of the animal do the work, he could not resist the impulse to drive the cutlass deeper into the bull's neck. The result was that, though he escaped the creature's horn by a very narrow shave, the cutlass was wrenched violently from his grasp, and he was sent head over heels ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... length before the breasts of their coursers; their shields hanging from their necks, that their left hands might have freedom to guide their horses; and the whole body rushing on with an equal front, and a momentum of speed which increased with every second. Such an onset might have startled naked men, (for such were the Welsh, in respect of the mail-sheathed Normans,) but it brought no terrors to the ancient British, who had long made it their boast ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... proposition. The wind was dead against us and to try to tack from side to side of the road was useless, because we would hardly get under way on one tack before we had to swing around on the other tack, losing all our momentum. It ended up by our lowering sail and ignominiously trundling the yacht back to school. After that we carefully selected our course, and never sailed away from home before the wind unless we knew ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... fast back toward Pachuca as he had been flying away from it only a few minutes before. It could not have been more than ten minutes altogether since the wreck of the engine and Adrian figured that if the grade were steep enough the car might gain momentum enough to carry it back to the scene of the trouble; but he had little hope ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... a fall, and the conductor's cash box was shunted off the surface of the plush seat and came clanking to the floor. The Pintsch lights overhead vibrated with blinding rapidity in the long, sliding jar that ran through the train from end to end, and the momentum of its speed suddenly decreasing, all but pitched the conductor from his seat. A hideous ear-splitting rasp made itself heard from the clamped-down Westinghouse gear underneath, and Annixter knew that the wheels had ceased to revolve and that ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... convention. Mrs. Burt was granted a hearing. The convention did not recommend either of these measures, but that of woman's suffrage received much attention, being defeated by a vote of ninety-seven to fifty-eight. The momentum received from this petition effort will not soon ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier

... recurring motifs: the deepening mystery of Nemo's past life and future intentions, the mounting tension between Nemo and hot-tempered harpooner Ned Land, and Ned's ongoing schemes to escape from the Nautilus. These unifying threads tighten the narrative and accelerate its momentum. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... days that seem far back in the march of luxury, because of the vast impetus of human momentum, stores were closed early, and the primitive family tea-table still existed which marked the assemblage of the household around the ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... The break-through was clean and the advance made by the endless waves of German shock-troops appalling. Within eight days the enemy had swept forward to a depth of fifty-six kilometers, threatening the capture of Amiens and the separation of the French and British. As the initial momentum of the onslaught was lost, the Allied line was re-formed with the help of French reserves under Fayolle. But the Allies had been and still were close to disaster. Complete unity of command was essential. It was plain also, in the words of Pershing's ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... that vice, and man is an imitative animal, it is quite probable that it will speedily manifest itself in him. This vice, however, belongs to the vehicles only and not to the man inside. In these vehicles its repetition may set up a momentum which is hard to conquer; but if the ego bestirs himself to create in himself the opposite virtue, the vice is cut off at its root, and can no longer exist—neither in this life nor in all the lives that are ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater

... rapidly as possible, and the momentum gathering quickly, it was soon speeding over the prairie at a tremendous rate, ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis



Words linked to "Momentum" :   strength, impulse, physical property, conservation of momentum



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com