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INVERSION (Lat. invertere, to turn ab...

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 722 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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INVERSION (Lat. invertere, to turn about)

INVERSION (See also:
LAT
Lat. invertere, to turn about) , in See also:

chemistry, the name given to the See also:

HYDROLYSIS (Gr. 6Swp, water, Anew, to loosen)

hydrolysis of See also:

CANE

cane See also:

SUGAR

sugar into a mixture of See also:

GLUCOSE (from Gr. - twais, sweet)

glucose and See also:

FRUCTOSE, LAEVULOSE

fructose (invert sugar) ; it was chosen because the operation was attended by a See also:

CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)

change from dextro-rotation of polarized See also:

LIGHT

light to a laevo-rotation. In See also:

MATHEMATICS (Gr. /saBnµar1Kil, Sc. vOcvn or E7rlQTt'µn; from p iN.La, "learning" or "science ")

mathematics, inversion is a geometrical method, discovered jointly by See also:

Stubbs agd See also:

Ingram of See also:

DUBLIN

Dublin, and employed subsequently with conspicuous success by See also:

Lord See also:

KELVIN, WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON (1824-1907)

Kelvin in his See also:

electrical researches. The notion may be explained thus: If R be a circle of centre 0 and See also:

RADIUS

radius r, and P, Q be two points on a radius such that OP.OQ = See also:

R2(rt-s2)

r2, then P, Q are said to be inverse points for a circle of radius r, and 0 is the centre of inversion. If one point, say P, traces a See also:

CURVE (Lat. curvus, bent)

curve, the corresponding See also:

LOCUS (Lat. for " place "; in Gr. rinros)

locus of Q is said to be the inverse of the path of P. The fundainental propositions are: (I) the inverse of a circle is a See also:

LINE

line or a circle according as the centre of inversion is on or off the circumference; (2) the See also:

ANGLE (from the Lat. angulus, a corner, a diminutive, of which the primitive form, angus, does not occur in Latin; cognate are the Lat. angere, to compress into a bend or to strangle, and the Gr. ayKOS, a bend; both connected with the Aryan root ank-, to

angle at the intersection of two circles or of a line and a circle is unaltered by inversion. The method obviously affords a ready means for converting theorems involving lines and circles into other propositions involving the same, but differently placed, figures; in mathematical physics it is of See also:

SPECIAL

special value in solving geometrically electrostatical and See also:

OPTICAL

optical problems.

End of Article: INVERSION (Lat. invertere, to turn about)

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