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Proportional   /prəpˈɔrʃənəl/   Listen
Proportional

noun
1.
One of the quantities in a mathematical proportion.



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"Proportional" Quotes from Famous Books



... a second,' and the American was satisfied; but Professor Thomson enunciated the law of retardation, and cleared up the whole matter. He showed that the velocity of a signal through a given core was inversely proportional to the square of the length of the core. That is to say, in any particular cable the speed of a signal is diminished to one-fourth if the length is doubled, to one-ninth if it is trebled, to one-sixteenth if it is quadrupled, and so on. It was now possible ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... M. Deshayes of Paris, already celebrated as a conchologist, had been led independently by the study of a large collection of Recent and fossil shells to very similar views respecting the possibility of arranging the Tertiary formations in chronological order, according to the proportional number of species of shells identical with living ones, which characterised each of the successive groups above mentioned. After comparing 3000 fossil species with 5000 living ones, the result arrived at was, that in the lower Tertiary strata there were about 3 ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... mental stimuli is always relative. The psychologist knows the experiments which determine that we perceive the difference of impressions as alike when the stimuli are proportional. If I have a ten-pound weight in one hand, I may find that I must have one pound more in the other hand to discriminate the difference. Now if I take twenty pounds in the one hand, then it is not sufficient to have one pound more in ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... is the second factor of good organization. A cursory study of a well-organized chapter or merely passing attention to a well-organized lecture reveals at once a distinct difference in the emphasis on the various parts or elements of the subject. The proportional allotment of time or space, the number of illustrations, the number of questions asked on a given point, the force of language—these are all means of bringing out the relative importance of constituent topics or principles. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... another question. How are you to subdivide these magisterial districts for the purpose of allocating members? Some will have two, some three, some a number of members; and on what system will you allocate the members to these divisions? We have considered the question of proportional representation. It is the only perfect way in which minorities of every shade and view and interest can receive effective representation. And Lord Elgin was careful to instruct the Committee as a special point to inquire into the possibility of adopting the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... wayfarer was reminded of the assurance given by a bright boy to a traveler who wanted to know the best road to a certain place: "Whichever road you take, before you get halfway there you'll wish you had taken t' other." By night swarms of rats, of a size proportional to their ample food supply, disputed the right of way ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... in the three species of Arca seems to be a very noteworthy fact, as does the increase of size in so many, yet not all, the species. What a constant state of fluctuation the whole organic world seems to be in! It is interesting to hear that everywhere the first change apparently is in the proportional numbers of the species. I was much struck with the fact in the upraised shells of Coquimbo, in Chili, as mentioned in my "Geological ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... to gain some rude notion of the proportional number of cases in which the cotyledons of dicotyledonous plants (hypogean ones being of course excluded) changed their position in a conspicuous manner at night, one or more species in several genera were cursorily observed, ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... nearly firm enough in his intercourse with Roman Catholics or 'orthodox' Protestants, with whom, in fact, he frequently arranges political 'deals.' For Smits is, if not the chairman, the most influential and active member of the Liberal caucus; and, being in favour of proportional representation, he insists that the other political parties shall have their fair number of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... thousands of years before he was born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a little more he would find that Newton's discovery was not that there is such a law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and inversely to the squares of their distances." I do not think he made the discoveries on account of his Christianity. Laplace was certainly in many respects as great a mathematician ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... instrument, it is necessary, among other things, to have the tension of all the strings reasonably uniform. In the treble this is accomplished by varying the string lengths. Since the length of a vibrating string is inversely proportional to its frequency, each string is made about half as long as the string an octave below, two thirds as long as the string a fifth below, etc. This principle cannot be carried all the way into the bass since the lowest strings would ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge

... altogether. As it would be out of the question in a few pages to make an adequate portrait of women who occupy so conspicuous a place in history as Mme. De Maintenon and Mme. De Stael, the former has been reluctantly passed with a simple allusion, and the latter outlined in a brief resume not at all proportional to the relative interest or importance ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... claim, in the strongest language, the merit of the Narrative for his friend. A passage or two from that memoir may satisfy the reader as to this part of the evidence, and as to the opinion of Dr W. one of the principal witnesses, respecting the proportional labours of Messrs Walter and Robins. "Upon a strict perusal of both the performances," says he, "I find Mr Robins' to contain about as much matter again as that of Mr Walter—so this famous Voyage was composed in the person ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... as he was called Master High-tower, was worthy of his commanding name, for he was at least six feet and three inches in height, and of proportional magnitude. It would have looked more in keeping to see him at the head of an embattled host rather than exercising dominion over the little rudiments of humanity arranged around him. His hair was thick and bushy, and he had a habit of combing it with his fingers ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... action of the cutaneous and pulmonary capillaries, and of the heart and arteries, in febris irritativa continues long and with violence, a proportional expenditure or exhaustion of sensorial power occurs; which by its tendency to induce torpor of some part, or of the whole, brings on a return of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... that a very subtile and elastic fluid, which he calls aether, is diffused thro' the pores of gross bodies, as well as thro' the open spaces that are void of gross matter: he supposes it to pierce all bodies, and to touch their least particles, acting on them with a force proportional to their number or to the matter of the body on which it acts. He supposes likewise, that it is rarer in the pores of bodies than in open spaces, and even rarer in small pores and dense bodies, than in large pores and rare bodies; and also that its density increases in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... which, working on a lever, forces down the piston of a pump for pumping water. Robt. Street adds to his description a note: "The quantity of spirits of tar or turpentine to be made use of is always proportional to the confined space, in general about 10 drops to a cubic foot." This engine is quite a workable one, although the arrangements described ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... in water solution, and the comparative !strength!, that is, the activity, of acids is proportional to the concentration of the H^{} ions and is measured by the percentage dissociation in solutions of equivalent concentration. The common mineral acids are largely dissociated and therefore give a relatively high concentration of H^{} ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... that your greatest astronomer, John Kepler, announced as one of three harmonic laws by which the universe was governed, that the squares of the times of the planets were proportional to the cubes of their distances from the sun; and that this law was true in physics and everywhere. No one of your scientists has had the wisdom to study out what it meant, and for three centuries, for 291 years, you have repeated his words like so many parrots, instead of using the key he ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson

... gallon of water that falls between these two points, and is made to escape through the revolving blades of a water wheel is capable of work in terms of foot-pounds—an amount of work that is directly proportional to the quantity of water, and to the distance in feet which it falls to ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... As the advocates of Proportional Representation have been telling us for so many years, the Representative System may actually place the control of the Government in the hands of a minority. Again, though men may be elected to do one thing, they may in practice do another. Representative ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... Money was funnelled into the country through trade union connections. Protests were staged. Riots were organized. The electoral system under which the Peoples Progressive Party had won its victories was altered in London and Jagan was replaced by a system of proportional representation under which the P.P.P. was defeated ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... made still clearer by the following diagram which represents the length of string necessary to produce these tones. (This diagram is exact in the various proportional lengths, being about one twenty-fifth the ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... know,—that to produce the circular whirls or currents in a previously inactive conductor, the lines of force of some already existing magnetic field must be caused to pass through the conductor, and that the strength of the current so produced is proportional to the number of lines of magnetic force cut in a given time, say, per second; or, in other words, is directly proportional to the strength of the magnetic field, and to the velocity and length of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the catastrophe, the nearer such a composition will approach the perfection of the novelist's art; nor can an author neglect this branch of his profession, without incurring proportional censure. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... him down the beach, laved his head and face with the tepid water. The paroxysm gradually subsided, the sobs became less convulsive and then ceased; by an odd but not quite unnatural conjunction, the captain's soothing current of talk died away at the same time and by proportional steps, and the pair remained sunk in silence. The lagoon broke at their feet in petty wavelets, and with a sound as delicate as a whisper; stars of all degrees looked down on their own images in that vast mirror; and the more angry colour of the Farallone's riding lamp burned in the ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the free and enlightened population of Switzerland and Scandinavia the birthrate is often exceedingly low; while Ireland, one of the most unhappy and weak of European nations, had long one of the highest birthrates, without any proportional increase in population or power. With regard to the different classes in one community, the same effect is observable. The birthrate per woman is higher among the lowest and most ignorant classes in the back slums of our great cities, than among the women of the upper and ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... famous everywhere. Nowhere, least of all in Rome, are the relics of that great people of builders to be seen in such perfection. There is the amphitheatre, smaller, but more perfect even, than that at Arles. There is the Maison Carree, a temple almost quite perfect, and of surpassing proportional perfection. Small this temple is: it consists of thirty elegant Corinthian columns, ten of which are disengaged, and form the portico, whereas the remainder are engaged in the naos or sanctuary. No engraving can give an idea of its loveliness. It is the best ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... admitted that modern precedents were not altogether in favor of the American position. Treaties ceding territory not infrequently provide for the assumption by the new sovereign of a proportional part of the general obligations of the ceding state. This is usually true when the territory ceded is so considerable as to form an important portion of the dismembered country. Even "the great conqueror of this century," ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... of a size to make her conspicuous, and I reflected that, if there had been another stage to the journey and a proportional shrinkage in the vessel, it surely would have had to be accomplished in a scow. Although by no means palatial, the Buford was a fair-sized, ocean-going steamer. The Francisco Reyes was a dirty old tub with pretensions to the contrary; and the General Blanco—well, ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... eccentrics and epicycles, but eventually discovered that the orbit of a planet is not a circle but an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci, and that the areas swept over by a line drawn from the planet to the sun are proportional to the times. These constitute what are now known as the first and second laws of Kepler. Eight years subsequently, he was rewarded by the discovery of a third law, defining the relation between the mean distances ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... changes in the proportional development of the muscular and osseous systems, and hence probably of the nervous system also, the importance of inherited habits, natural or acquired, cannot be overlooked in the general theory of inheritance. I am fully aware that I shall ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... that every muscle has free and unrestrained motion. Walking to be beneficial should be out of doors, with some pleasant motive, and taken with some degree of energy. The length of the walk should be proportional to the strength of the girl—short at first, and increasing as strength increases. The erect attitude should be maintained, and the walking not prolonged ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... public school system was established in Boston, girls were admitted from April to October; but until 1825 they were allowed to attend primary schools only. In 1790 Gloucester voted that "two hours, or a proportional part of that time, be devoted to the instruction of females." In 1793 Plymouth accorded girls one ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... reassure themselves and cease to fear for future generations when they were told that according to the calculations of Laplace, an illustrious French mathematician, this acceleration of movement was restricted within very narrow limits, and that a proportional diminution will follow it. Thus the equilibrium of the solar world cannot ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... shown in Fig. 1. Then by moving the tracing point round and round an imaginary figure and allowing the hatchet to go where it pleases, it will be seen that the hatchet moves to and fro along zigzag lines, and travels sideways—the side travel being nearly proportional to the area of the figure described by the tracing point. If the tracing point be too tightly grasped, the hatchet will not move freely, and, will have a side slip. When this occurs the side travel of the hatchet ceases to be proportional ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... minutes under Sept. 6, 1774, explain, because the relative importance of the colonies represented could not be determined at the time. It was continued by default. But the arrangement bore no respect to proportional representation. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia could combine and make a majority of the States and yet contain not one-third of the people. New York and Connecticut might be added, making nine of the thirteen States, ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire bats. I imagine this repulsive aspect originates from the features being placed in positions, with respect to each other, somewhat proportional to those of the human face; and thus we ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... of Anthropology relies, for its demonstration, upon human impressibility. Impressibility in its general sense, or the power of being affected by external agents, is proportional to the development of life. Inorganic matter is affected only mechanically or chemically—vegetation is powerfully affected by causes which would have no perceptible influence on stones or metals, and animals are affected by remote objects, by sounds, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... in a three-quarter-face, is placed in the middle of the breadth of the plate; the chin, in a person of middle stature, in the middle of the length, and higher according to the proportional height of ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey

... heroine's present meaning. She soon made it intelligible. We forbear to relate all that was said upon the occasion: as it was a disappointment of the purse and not of the heart, his lordship was of course obliged to make a proportional quantity of professions of eternal sorrow and disinterestedness. Almeria, partly to save her own pride the mortification of the repetition, forbore to allude to the confidential speech in which he had explained to a friend his motives for marrying; she hoped that he would soon console ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... refutable, and finality, in the special sense in which we understand it, would be demonstrable in a certain aspect, if it could be proved that life may manufacture the like apparatus, by unlike means, on divergent lines of evolution; and the strength of the proof would be proportional both to the divergency between the lines of evolution thus chosen and to the complexity of the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... there is no country at present, and there never was any country before, in which the ratio of the cash reserve to the bank deposits was so small as it is now in England. So far from our being able to rely on the proportional magnitude of our cash in hand, the amount of that cash is so exceedingly small that a bystander almost trembles when he compares its minuteness with the immensity of the credit ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... National Board included among its members Dr. Murray, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin; Dr. Whately, the Protestant Archbishop of that city; and Dr. Carlisle, a Presbyterian Minister. No attempt was made to effect anything approaching a proportional representation of the creeds concerned, and the two Catholic members were outvoted by their five Protestant colleagues on the Board for the control of the education of the children of a population in which Catholics were to Protestants in the ratio of ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... lion born ten or fifteen miles away. The seeds of one parent plant falling in a restricted area will be engaged in a competitive struggle for existence that is much more intense than many other parts of nature's warfare. In brief, the intensity of the competition will be directly proportional to the similarity of two organisms in constitution and situation, and to the consequent similarity of vital welfare. The interests of the white man and the Indian ran counter to each other a few hundred years ago, and the more powerful colonists ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... conduct of foreign affairs, for the army, and for the ministry of finance. The revenues of the joint budget consist of the revenues of the joint ministries, the net proceeds of the customs, and the quota, or the proportional contributions of the two states. This quota is fixed for a period of years, and generally coincides with the duration of the customs and commercial treaty. Until 1897 Austria contributed 70%, and Hungary 30% of the joint expenditure, remaining after-deduction of the common revenue. It was then ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... view-points. Patience with the witness is perhaps the most important key to success. No doubt it is difficult to be patient where there is no time; and what with our contemporary overtasking, there is no time. But that must be altered. Justice must have strength to keep everybody's labor proportional to his task. A nation whose representatives do not grant money enough for this purpose must not expect satisfactory law courts—"no checkee no washee;'' no money no justice. People who have time will ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... which gives a proportional price to things, either mediocres, good or excellent, whether the articles derive them out of, ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... convinced that these statements express even vaguely the tendency of human development in all its past history, we are confident that these tendencies will continue in the future for a period somewhat proportional to their time of growth in the past. If we are wise, we try to make our own lives and actions, and those of our fellows, conform to and advance them. Otherwise our lives ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... error. Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort. In no instance is the effect of 101:30 animal magnetism, recently called hypnotism, other than the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from it is proportional to one's ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... Herzegovina The Dayton Agreement, signed in Paris on 14 December 1995, retained Bosnia and Herzegovina's exterior border and created a joint multi-ethnic and democratic government. This national government - based on proportional representation similar to that which existed in the former socialist regime - is charged with conducting foreign, economic, and fiscal policy. The Dayton Agreement also recognized a second tier of government, comprised of two entities ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... sexes. Abolition of the Monarchy. Democratisation of the governmental machinery, viz. abolition of the House of Lords, payment of members of legislative and administrative bodies, payment of official expenses of elections out of the public funds, adult suffrage, proportional representation, triennial Parliaments, second ballot, initiative and referendum. Foreigners to be granted rights of citizenship after two years' residence in the country, on the recommendation of four British-born citizens, without any fee. Canvassing to be made ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... suppose it be required to find a fourth proportional which shall stand to the third of three numbers as the second does to the first. The merchant's clerk knows his rule; he multiplies the second into the third and divides by the first. He neither knows nor cares to know why the result ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... many and very different natures, living in territories which are to them vast continents, and rivers, and seas, but which are yet only the bodies of our other component souls; coral reefs and sponge-beds within us; the animal itself being a kind of mean proportional between its house and its soul, and none being able to say where house ends and animal begins, more than they can say where animal ends and soul begins. For our bones within us are but inside walls and buttresses, that is to say, houses constructed of lime and ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... revolving disk. The mixed grains are cast on this disk, pass to the edge, and are hurled off at a tangent. Suppose at A. Each particle is immediately acted on by three forces. For all particles of the same size and having the same velocity the resistance of the air may be taken the same, that is, proportional to the area presented. The acceleration of gravity is the same; but the inertia of the heavier grain is greater. The resultant of the two conspiring forces R and (Mv^{2})/2 varies, and is greater for a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... least an intelligible working hypothesis of the rationale of the Bible Promises. The measurement of their fulfilment is exactly proportional to our belief in them, not from any unintelligible cause, and still less from any unreasoning feat of a capricious Deity, but by the working of an intelligible Law. If any of my readers happens to be an electrician, he ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... time. It is assumed that the air drawn at the point H is of substantially the same composition as that inside the chamber, an assumption that may not be strictly true, but doubtless the sample thus obtained is constantly proportional to the average composition, which fluctuates but slowly. Ordinarily the piping leading from the left-hand arm of the tube D is left open to the air and consequently the difference in the level of ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... 97 per cent. of mono- hydrate. It is of the very greatest importance that the nitric acid should be as strong as possible. Nothing under a gravity of 1.52 should ever be used even to mix with stronger acid, and the nitration will be proportional to the strength of the acid used, provided the sulphuric acid is also strong enough. It is also of great importance that the oxides of nitrogen should be low, and that they should be kept down to as low as 1 per cent., or even lower. It is also very desirable that the ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... comes home late, with feverish brain and weary legs. His chest and arms have had no exercise proportional to the rest of his system. What shall he do to restore the balance? If he can, let him erect in some upper room, away from furnace-heat, instead of a billiard-table, a private shrine to Apollo or Mercury. He will need but little apparatus. A set of weights and pulleys, a pair ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... circle about C whose diameter is AB, the major axis. Since DTO is a right angle, T lies upon the circumference of the circle whose center is C, and diameter DO; this circle cuts the asymptote SCS at M and N. The semi-conjugate axis is a mean proportional between D A and AO; now drawing TM and TN, it is seen that Tt is that mean proportional; and a circle described about C with that radius will be tangent to TO. DT, then, is the radius of the circle to be described about ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... 6 deg. S. they caught many dorados and dolphins, both, in the opinion of the author of this voyage, being the same fish, of which the dolphin is the male and the dorado the female. Some of these are six feet long, but not of proportional bulk. In the water they appear excessively beautiful, their skins shining as if streaked with burnished gold; but lose their splendid appearance on being taken out of the water. Their flesh is very sweet and well flavoured, so that the seamen always feast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... which does not agree with experience. Guided by purely formal points of view, H. A. Lorentz was the first to introduce the hypothesis that the form of the electron experiences a contraction in the direction of motion in consequence of that motion. the contracted length being proportional to the expression ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein

... in any position on the walls up to a height of 8 feet from the ground may be distinguished with ease. The difference in cost, &c., of a greater or less degree of illumination, or of lighting a larger or smaller room by acetylene or any other of the illuminants named, will be almost directly proportional to the cost given for the stated conditions. Nevertheless, it should be recollected that when the conventional system is retained—useful illuminating effect being sacrificed to absolute illuminating power—acetylene is made to appear cheaper in comparison with all weaker unit ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... and of a general outline, the same which the paper now exhibits. His outline did not appear so distinctly in his own plan, because the subjects were not so arranged in it as to show that they were all comprehended within a regular and proportional figure; but when they came to be so arranged in the present Address, the scope of the whole design is seen to be contained within the limits he intended, and to fill them. The subjects were traced by him with adequate precision, though without due connection, with little ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... vibration is that of heat, of atmospheric vitality. The silhouettes melt into the sky; the shadows are lights where certain tones, the blue, the purple, the green and the orange, predominate, and it is the proportional quantity of the spots that differentiates in our eyes the shadows from what we call the lights, just as it actually happens in optic science. There are some midday scenes by Claude Monet, where every material silhouette—tree, hay-rick, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... referees in astronomical or pharmaceutical cases, or with ordinary omphalopsychites. Whatever be or not be the result of these investigations and calculations, it is consolatory to the student of proportional hemispheres to remark that, whichever way the sophist may turn, he must invariably rely on the softer impeachments of a hireling ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... the boa species are here found of a most enormous size, many being from thirty to thirty-six feet in length, and of proportional girth. They attack alike wild and domestic beasts, and often human kind. They kill their prey by encircling it in their folds, and squeezing it to death, and afterwards swallow it entire; this they are enabled to do by a faculty of very extraordinary expansion in their muscles, without ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... partner of the fisherman, to the extent of such advance, proportionately to the value of the boat, drift of nets, etc. possessed by the fisherman and used in the fishing, and becoming liable as such partner for a proportional share of the charges of the fisherman's adventure, and (2) that the custom of fixing the price 'by general terms' be abolished; the trade would, it is thought, soon revert to legitimate methods of dealing. The real capitalist would share the risks and generally engross them; while ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... opinion that the twin screw arrangement necessitates a greater weight of machinery. This is not necessarily so, however; on the contrary, the opportunity is offered for reducing the weight of all that part of the machinery of which the weight relatively to power is inversely proportional to the revolutions for a given power. This can be reduced in the proportion of 1 to the square root of 2, that is 71 per cent. of its weight in the single screw engine; for since approximately the same total disk area is required in both cases with similar proportioned ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... and if the working class rise peacefully and legitimately into power, it is not in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather according as it seems to the knowledge of the other orders of the community, that such augmentation of proportional power is just, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... if men are, de natura, depraved," continued R——, "and possess virtue and vice only in proportional masses to the size of the brain and body, they can surely exhibit a pound or two of wisdom to eighteen stone of folly; and if they must be asinine, may cover their actions with ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... plant tends also to increase or diminish its electric response. These E.M. effects are well marked, and attain considerable value, rising sometimes, as has been said before, to as much as .1 volt or more. They are proportional to the ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... primarily to check this abuse that a statute of the reign of Henry the Sixth restricted in 1430 the right of voting in shires to freeholders holding land worth forty shillings, a sum equal in our money to at least twenty pounds a year and representing a far higher proportional income at the present time. Whatever its original purpose may have been, the result of the statute was a wide disfranchisement. It was aimed, in its own words, against voters "of no value, whereof every of them pretended to have a voice equivalent with the more worthy ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... an allusion to the music of the spheres; see lines 3, 1021. Pythagoras supposed that the planets emitted sounds proportional to their distances from the earth and formed a celestial concert too melodious to affect the "gross unpurged ear" of mankind: comp. l. 458 and Arc. 63-73. Shakespeare (M. of V. v. 1. 61) alludes to the music ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... the medal, or in the bust, might be remedied by some mechanical contrivance, by which the deviation of the diamond point from the right line (which it would describe when the tracing point traverses a plane), would be made proportional not to the elevation of the corresponding point above the plane of the medal, but to its elevation above some other parallel plane removed to a fit distance behind it. Thus busts and statues might be reduced to any ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... He admitted that there were several counties from which memorials had come, but charged that there had been a signing of more than one memorial in some counties by the same persons, so that there was a doubling of names without a proportional increase of individual signers. He depreciated Stephenson's statement that these memorials had come from almost every part of the State as ill-founded; for the sixteen counties of Tennessee which had sent representatives ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... sweetness, when the active virtue does not disproportionally exceed the recipient virtue, because the sense is depressed by extremes, and delighted by means. It is observed in so far as it forms the ground of efficacy and impression, which is proportional when the agent, in impressing, satisfies the need of the patient, and this is to preserve and nourish it, as appears chiefly in taste and touch. And thus we see how, by pleasure, external delightful things enter through similitude into ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... their slightest perturbations. He frankly admitted his inability to determine what this force was, but by observations and calculations made with the greatest care, he ascertained that its action upon matter was proportional to its mass directly, and to the square of its distance inversely; and, with the requisite data and the principles of pure geometry, he demonstrated that this mysterious force—utterly inapproachable by human conception ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... limestones they are more likely to stand out in relief, because of the softer character of the limestone, though this does not always work out. Crystalline magnetite and hematite are more resistant to erosion than almost any other type of rock, and stand out at the surface with proportional frequency. ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... agnostic, or atheist; he is firm in the conviction that religions of all varieties are rapidly sinking into the limbo of all other ancient superstitions. To him it is but a matter of time for the inevitable crumbling and disappearance of these superstitions, and the time involved is directly proportional to the ease and rapidity with which scientific knowledge is disseminated to men who have the mental capacity to understand the value of this knowledge and its utter destruction of all forms of supernaturalism. When man becomes fully cognizant of the fact that all the knowledge acquired ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... Whether such momentum be not the real stock or wealth of a State; and whether its credit be not proportional thereunto? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... weight; and with the accession of hard bodies, moveable with the agitation of the waves, gives to the sea the power of undermining farther and farther into the solid basis of our land. This is the operation which is to be measured; this is the mean proportional by which we are to estimate the age of worlds that have terminated, and the duration of those that are ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... must necessarily be functionless when it first begins to appear. There are two very good reasons why such should not be the case in all instances, even if it should be the case in some. For, as a matter of observable fact, a very large proportional number of incipient organs are useful from the very moment of their inception. Take, for example, what is perhaps the most wonderful instance of refined mechanism in nature—the eye of a vertebrated animal. Comparative anatomy ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... of this philosophy and of the system for its practical utilization rests on the concept of relative or proportional values. In the military environment, change, rather than stability, is especially to be expected, and the relationships existing among the essential elements of a military situation are, in fact, the significant values. ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... ample supplies for his people; in particular, he is (morally) rich in potatoes. His finances at first sight appear to be pretty heavily involved, but that will soon be adjusted by (hypothetical) indemnities; he has enormous (proportional) reserves of men; he has (theoretically) blockaded Great Britain, and his final victory ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various

... inflammable air and air which extinguishes a candle may differ from one another in the mode of the combination of these two constituent principles, as well as in the proportional quantity of each; and by agitation in water, or long standing, that mode of combination may change. This we know to be the case with other substances, as with milk, from which, by standing only, cream is ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... It has been objected to me, that infinite divisibility supposes only an infinite number of PROPORTIONAL not of ALIQIOT parts, and that an infinite number of proportional parts does not form an infinite extension. But this distinction is entirely frivolous. Whether these parts be calld ALIQUOT or PROPORTIONAL, they cannot be inferior to those minute parts we conceive; and therefore ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... bodies as opaque as the Earth, traveling round the God of Day at a speed proportional to their distance. They number eight principal orbs, and may be divided into two quite distinct groups by which we may recognize them: the first comprises four planets, of relatively small dimensions in comparison with those of the second group, which are so voluminous that the least important ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... unique case."[1214] He held further that defendants had failed to shoulder the necessary burden of proof in support of their allegations of discrimination, and added: "At most, the proof shows lack of proportional representation and there is an utter deficiency of proof that this was the result of a purpose to discriminate against this group as such. The uncontradicted evidence is that no person was excluded because ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... also thou hast performed, O descendant of Bharata; for one pulled down from a throne it is nothing but hardship that awaits him. O king, where is there any happiness for him! O afflicter of thy foes, in compensation for all this vast misery wrought by Dhritarashtra's son, thou wilt attain to proportional happiness after having killed thy foes, O great king. O lord of men, the ways of the world are known to thee. Therefore, O my son, thou art never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... conscience, forcibly assailed her resolution. But her ministers, deeply sensible that both she and they had already gone too far to recede with reputation or with safety, encountered her growing reluctance with a proportional increase in the vehemence of their clamors for what they called, and perhaps thought, justice. All the hazards to which her excess of clemency might be imagined to expose her, were conjured up in the most alarming ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... started a difficulty, Emily, which certainly requires explanation. It is found by experiment that the power of absorption corresponds with and is proportional to that of radiation; so that under equal temperatures, bodies compensate for the greater loss they sustain in consequence of their greater radiation by their greater absorption; so that if you were to make your experiment in an ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... world from the splendor of its materials, more than the grace, boldness, or majesty of its height and dimensions. It had neither the colossal magnitude of the Egyptian, the simple dignity and perfect proportional harmony of the Grecian, nor perhaps the fantastic grace and lightness of later Oriental architecture. Some writers, calling to their assistance the visionary temple of Ezekiel, have erected a most superb ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... of the sun, and associated with infinite force. The shortest, being the point at the other end of the quadrant, thus corresponded to the fixed stars or zero force; intermediate ones were to be found proportional to the "forces" of the six planets. After a great amount of unfinished trial calculations, which took nearly a whole summer, he convinced himself that success did not lie that way. In July, 1595, while lecturing on the great planetary ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... corporation to sink a debt at a certain future time is called a SINKING FUND. For instance, if a city should issue twenty-year bonds for $100,000 to secure money for street improvements the entire debt would fall due in twenty years, but to avoid having such a large amount fall due in one year, a proportional sum is set aside each year as a sinking fund—that is, to sink, or reduce, or wipe out the indebtedness when the bonds mature. Bonds are not paid ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various

... all classes. The thirty most intelligent children of the age of fourteen at Paris will be more enlightened than the thirty most intelligent children of the same age at Constantinople, and the same proportional difference will be true of the lowest classes ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... Physicians amongst them, towards whom they are very liberal when they are sick, thinking that the Operation of the Remedies they take, is proportional to the Presents they make unto those ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees of gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. Anything further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and one is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... had been formed to take the contract for building the Union Pacific Railroad. The stockholders of the two companies were identical. Each stockholder of the Credit Mobilier owned a number of shares of the Union Pacific Railroad proportional to his holding in the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... woman's movement is not only in itself an interesting part, but one in the solution of which is shown to be that of many others. People who shrink from "feminism" in its more intense and accentuated forms, will find here a more proportional treatment, enlightening ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... magnifying device. A slight longitudinal displacement of the tube causes it to rotate through a considerable angle by the action of the spring. By properly proportioning the parts, the angle of displacement of the index is directly proportional to the current between 15 and ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... his freedom would be lost, were he only susceptible of physical education. But he must be man in the full sense of the term, and consequently he must have nothing to endure, in any case, contrary to his will. Accordingly, when he can no longer oppose to the physical forces any proportional physical force, only one resource remains to him to avoid suffering any violence: that is, to cause to cease entirely that relation which is so fatal to him. It is, in short, to annihilate as an idea the violence he is obliged ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Production of crystal. Cold is the attractive or astringent power, comparatively uncounteracted by the dilative, the diminution of which is the proportional increase of the contractive. Hence the astringent, or power of negative magnetism, is the proper agent in cold, and the contractive, or oxygen, an allied and consequential power. 'Crystallum, non ex aqua, sed ex substantia metallorum ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... him to bed,—a service I had learned to perform with more or less proficiency,—I sat down to consider the events of the evening, to attempt to get a proportional view. The intensity of my disgust was not hypocritical as I gazed through the open door into the bedroom and recalled the times when I, too, had been in that condition. Tom Peters drunk, and sleeping it off, was deplorable, without doubt; ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... of land, the yield of which was regarded as an addition to salary. This land was free from part of the taxes. Before long the officials had secured the liberation of the whole of their land from the chief taxes. In the second place, the taxation system was simplified by making the amount of tax proportional to the amount of land owned. The lowest bracket, however, in this new system of taxation comprised more land than a poor peasant would actually own, and this was a heavy blow to the small peasant-owners, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... architect, with but very indifferent apparatus—a penknife, a file, and a bradawl being the principal instruments employed in the work. It measures exactly six feet from the figure head to the helm, and is precisely the same extent in height from the top of the mainmast to the keel, the width being of proportional dimensions. The materials are all of the best description, are tastefully polished or painted where necessary, and are so exactly fitted in every part as to baffle the detection of any conspicuous fault ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... of any moving body being proportional to the square of its velocity, it follows that the strain will be proportional to the square of the amount of deflection ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... alcohol is not a food. Let us reason together. All body oxidations may be classified in two groups: (1.) Active oxidations which take place in the active tissues—muscles, nervous system, or glands—and take place incident to action. It is under the perfect control of the nervous system and is proportional to normal activity. (2.) Protective oxidations which take place in the liver. This class of oxidation processes is wholly independent of the usual tissue activity and is proportional to the ingestion of toxic substances and quite independent of muscle action, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment! All classes of men and readers united in their rage against him who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford." ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... large-State men were now disposed to make some concessions. The word "national" was dropped from all the resolutions; and minor changes were made in the interest of harmony. But on the fundamental question of what was termed "proportional representation,"—that is, representation of the States in proportion to numbers in the national legislature,—no agreement seemed possible. More than once the convention was on the point of adjourning sine die. ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... circular bases, twenty-nine were overthrown in directions between north and east, sixteen between east and south, eighty-one between south and west, and fourteen between west and north.[11] Fig. 8 represents Professor Omori's results graphically, the line drawn from O to any point being proportional to the number of lamps which fell in directions between 7-1/2 on ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... grains in a square foot, we know that the number of square feet in the whole field is one-tenth that of the number of grains sown. So it is with the universe of stars. If the latter are sown equally through space, the extent of the space occupied must be proportional to the number of ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... fleeting present those old and new worlds of the past and the future, wherein men dwell the more the higher their culture. But that very sharpening of the sense and that subtle refinement of emotion, which brought such a wealth of pleasures, were fatally attended by a proportional enlargement of the capacity for suffering; and the divine faculty of imagination, while it created new heavens and new earths, provided them with the corresponding hells of futile regret for the past and morbid anxiety for the future. [Note ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... prepared with fresh and lean pork meat and bacon in equal quantity, chopped fine and seasoned with salt, pepper and spices. Add a proportional quantity of onions chopped very fine, not too much, however. Fill with the hash the prepared entrails, tie every two inches to ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile

... multiplication of the usual miseries which sadden, in the East, the last years of a long reign. It was a matter of custom as well as policy that an exaltation in the position of a ruler should be accompanied by a proportional increase in the number of his retinue and his wives. David was no exception to this custom: to the two wives, Abigail and Ahinoam, which he had while he was in exile at Ziklag, he now added Maacah the Aramaean, daughter of the King of Geshur, Haggith, Abital, Bglah, and several others.* During ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... nations unimpaired, affords little hope of a pacific future. A return to the era of competing armaments will destroy the moral strength of any formal international agreements, however specious. The importance of this consideration has led many to insist that an explicit agreement for proportional disarmament should take a prominent place in any settlement. This proposal, however, seems to me defective in that it presumes in all or some of the nations a persistence of the motives which have hitherto led them to strengthen their fighting forces. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... the compromise, not merely as a concession of the large to the small States, but also of the largely slaveholding, to the free, or slightly slaveholding States. The two questions of slave representation with a proportional increase of direct taxes, and of perfect equality in the Senate, were always connected together; and a large committee of compromise, consisting of one member from each State, expressly recommended that both provisions should be adopted, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... rendered me more and more impatient of control. I began to murmur,—to hesitate,—to resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would submit no longer ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... conference were set aside. The influence of old party machinery and a sluggish reluctance to take the trouble to understand either its character or its importance prevented the introduction of a system of proportional representation. The representatives of the caucuses scored a success towards slamming the door of the House of Commons in the face of the detached judgment, moderation of language, and independence of character which Parliament needs. The electors desire to have such qualities in their ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... already been balanced by the accessibility of supplies from America, became for the first time in recorded history definitely reversed. As numbers increased, food was actually easier to secure. Larger proportional returns from an increasing scale of production became true of agriculture as well as industry. With the growth of the European population there were more emigrants on the one hand to till the soil of the new countries, and, on the other, more workmen were available in ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... Socialism.... Each unit of the social organism has to embody his relations with the whole in his own particular work and will; and in order to do this the individual must have a strength and depth in himself proportional to and consisting of the relations which he has to embody." Grant Allen long since clearly set forth the harmony between Individualism and Socialism in an article published in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... to, in relation with, referable or referrible to[obs3]; belonging to &c. v.; appurtenant to, in common with. related, connected; implicated, associated, affiliated, allied to; en rapport, in touch with. approximative[obs3], approximating; proportional, proportionate, proportionable; allusive, comparable. in the same category &c. 75; like &c. 17; relevant &c. (apt) 23; applicable, equiparant[obs3]. Adv. relatively &c. adj.; pertinently &c. 23. thereof; as to, as for, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... under the treatment acquire the special high lustre which ranks as 'silky.' Goods made from American cottons acquire a certain 'finish' and lustre, but the effects are not such as to have an industrial value—i.e. a value proportional ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross

... He had the talent—unfortunately, he didn't have the good sense to go with it. According to the Law of Contagion any two objects which have ever been in contact with each other have an affinity for each other which is directly proportional to the product of the degree of relevancy of the contact and the length of time they were in contact and inversely proportional to the length of time since they have ceased to be in contact." He gave a smiling glance to the priest. ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett

... importance of the different states constituting the union. If all alike are given an equivalent vote, it is rather hard on the big states, which represent larger numbers and therefore control larger destinies. If, on the other hand, we adopt the principle of proportional representation, we may be pretty certain that the larger states will press somewhat heavily on the smaller. For instance, suppose that some state violates, or threatens to violate, the public law of the world. In that case the Universal ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... the upper blank part of the paper, a proportional diagram consisting of two intersecting lines ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... the lawyers; yet, granting his sergeant of the law discretion and wisdom, a knowledge of cases even "from the time of King Will," and fees and perquisites quite proportional, he adds, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... longest life possible on earth. One day out of seventy, eighty, ninety years, would not seem so much; yet this entire period of even the longest life on earth, in its relative proportion to the life of all the eternities, is far less than is one day out of a lifetime in its proportional relation to Immortality. This spiritual panorama suggests its infinite energy of hope; it reinforces courage; it reveals in the most impressive manner the significance of living. For it is the tendency which always ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... intricacy and great variety. It would indeed be a fatal mistake to suppose that proportion cannot be susceptible of great variety, since the whole meaning of the term has reference to the adjustment and proportional correspondence of variable properties. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various



Words linked to "Proportional" :   proportion, proportionate, quantity, proportional tax



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