Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Proportional   Listen
noun
Proportional  n.  
1.
(Math.) Any number or quantity in a proportion; as, a mean proportional.
2.
(Chem.) The combining weight or equivalent of an element. (Obs.)






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 |





"Proportional" Quotes from Famous Books



... perfectly understand it. They can, by a series of questions like the above, be led to see by their own reasoning, that time, as denoted by the clock, must differ in every two places, not upon the same meridian, and that the difference must be exactly proportional to the difference of longitude. So that a watch, which is right in one place, cannot, strictly speaking, be right in any other place, east or west of the first: and that, if the time of day, at two places, can be compared, either by taking a chronometer from one to ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... you all come in with spirits attuned, ready to wait patiently and observe silently. The law of these materializations seems to be this: the forces of the psychic are proportional to the harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse proportion to the light. Accepting this law as proved by our illustrious fellow-experimenters abroad, are you ready to try again along the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... involves 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 be accused ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... 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 ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... current 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... would have if it operated alone, that is to say, its Tendency. This is best illustrated by the Parallelogram of Forces: if two forces acting upon a point, but not in the same direction, be represented by straight lines drawn in the direction of the forces, and in length proportional to their magnitudes, these lines, meeting in an angle, represent severally the tendencies of the forces; whilst if the parallelogram be completed on these lines, the diagonal drawn from the point in which they meet represents their Resultant ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... 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 ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... 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

... very simple numbers there is no need of this. For instance, one, two, three, being given, everyone can see that the fourth proportional is six; and this is much clearer, because we infer the fourth number from an intuitive grasping of the ratio, which the first bears to ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... was a wonder of the 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 edifice; to which there is this fatal objection, that if the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... we suppose the gas in the cylinder replaced by a vapour in a state of saturation, the effect of increased pressure, as of a weight placed upon the piston, is to reduce the vapour to a liquid, thereby bringing about a great diminution of volume and proportional loss of gravitational potential by the weight. But this change will by no means be brought about instantaneously. When a little of the vapour is condensed, this portion parts with latent heat of vaporisation, increasing the tension of the remainder, ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... Austria-Hungary, while in Hungary proper the dominant Magyars do not form quite 50 per cent. of the population. The predominance of the German and Magyar minorities is apparent not only from the fact that they hold the reins of government, but also from their unfair proportional representation in both parliaments. Thus instead of 310 seats out of 516 in the Reichsrat the Slavs hold only 259, while the Germans hold 232 instead of 160. By gaining 83 Polish votes in return for temporary concessions, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... cannot see why it would not be an advantage to the students of the female college to go into the preparatory department during their first college year, since they can get their own course with geometry added, and if they stay three years a proportional amount of Latin and Greek. I could compare the whole course in the same way, but my time and the reader's patience would fail. There is no hint either of any thorough prescribed course in any of the languages. In the first and fourth year no foreign language is put down. In each term of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... widely from the proportions of others, in parts very conspicuous and of great consideration; and that they differ no less from the proportions we find in living men, of forms extremely striking and agreeable. And after all, how are the partisans of proportional beauty agreed amongst themselves about the proportions of the human body? Some hold it to be seven heads; some make it eight; whilst others extend it even to ten: a vast difference in such a small number of divisions! Others take other methods of estimating the proportions, and all with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... possible for any party to propose an amendment to the state constitution, since it can not be expected under any ordinary conditions to control two-thirds of the popular vote. But inasmuch as the successful party often secures under our system much more than its proportional share of representation in the legislature, it is by no means unusual for a party to have a two-thirds majority in both houses of a state legislature. This would appear to give the numerical majority ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... meanness and dishonourable views; then the old man announced finally what he should do. He should write to Julia and offer her a smallish sum down in case the bulb proved to be of no great worth, and a promise of a proportional percentage afterwards if it proved valuable. This idea pleased him very well; it satisfied his notions of integrity and fair dealing and also his thrifty soul, which found trying the otherwise unavoidable duty of paying a long price for what had been freely given. From this Joost could not move ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... at the end, or other suitable material. It will be easily understood that when a weight is hung upon the hook B, the piston F is caused to descend into the mercury which rises in the annular space between the piston and the tube. The weight of the volume of displaced mercury is proportional to the weight of the body hung upon the hook, and the buoyancy of the piston in the mercury forms the upward force which balances the downward pull of gravity. When the apparatus is at rest the piston F descends into the mercury to such a distance as will balance the weight of the rods, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... 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 ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... illustrates to this effect: The Northern and wholly free states conceded that, while in the popular branch of the Legislature they themselves should have a representation proportioned only to their numbers, the slaveholders of the South should, in addition to their proportional numbers, have a representation for three fifths of their living property—their machinery; while the citizens of the free states have no addition to their number of representatives on account of their property; nor have their looms and manufactories, or ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

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

... glad to see that a compromise is effected, and the little man settles himself in the middle of a small carpet and locks his legs together so that his shins form an X and he sits on his feet. In this position he will ply his needle for the rest of the day at a rate inversely proportional to the distance of his mistress. When she retires for her afternoon siesta the needle will nap too. Then he will take out a little Vade Mecum, which is never absent from his waistband, and unroll it. It ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... 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 ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... of Aix-la-Chapelle to the tertiary and living floras in the proportional number of dicotyledonous angiosperms as compared to the gymnogens, is a subject of no small theoretical interest, because we can now affirm that these Aix plants flourished before the rich reptilian fauna of the secondary rocks had ceased to exist. The Ichthyosaurus, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... coveralls, gloves, and face masks with respirators, but that didn't prevent the stuff from sifting through onto their bodies. Rip, who directed the work and kept track of the radiation with a gamma-beta ion chamber and an alpha proportional counter, knew they would ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... part which prevents the entrance of insects and disease to the inner wood. From this it is quite evident that any injury to the bark, and consequently to this cambium layer alongside of it, will not only cut off a portion of the sap supply and hinder the growth of the tree to an extent proportional to the size of the wound, but will also expose the inner wood to the action of decay. The wound may, at first, appear insignificant, but, if neglected, it will soon commence to decay and thus to carry disease and insects into the tree. The tree then becomes hollow ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... Indeed, the treaty with the Delawares in 1778 actually contemplated the formation of a league of friendly tribes under the hegemony of the Delawares, to constitute the fourteenth State of the confederation then in arms against Great Britain, with a proportional representation in Congress. And this was proposed, not by men accustomed to see negroes voting at the polls, and even sitting in the Senate of the United States, but by our conservative and ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... of the axioms of the Aristotelian mechanics, that the heavier of two falling bodies would reach the ground sooner than the other, and that their velocities would be proportional to their weights. Galileo attacked the arguments by which this opinion was supported; and when he found his reasoning ineffectual, he appealed to direct experiment. He maintained, that all bodies would fall through the same height in the same time, if they ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... presentation by the Virginia delegation of a series of resolutions providing for radical changes in the machinery of the Confederation. The principal features were the organization of a legislature of two houses proportional to population and with increased powers, the establishment of a separate executive, and the creation of an independent judiciary. This was in reality providing for a new government and was probably quite beyond the ideas ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... should cause society to change resulting in a leveling of incomes through proportional taxation and aids of all kinds throughout the industrialized world. Nobody could ever imagine the immense wealth which was to be produced by the efficient industry of the 20th ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... base, and the nose terminated 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 obtain ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • 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, besides ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... 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

... verification by experiment of what is now known as the "law of comparison," or the law by which one is enabled to refer accurately the resistance of a model to one of larger size, or to that of a full sized vessel. In effect, the law is this—for vessels of the same proportional dimensions, or, as designers say, of the same lines, there are speeds appropriate to these vessels, which vary as the square roots of the ratio of their dimensions, and at these appropriate speeds the resistances ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... "An Englishman Looks at the World," a companion volume to the present one, which was first published by Messrs. Cassell early in 1914, and is now obtainable in a shilling edition, the reader will find a full discussion of the probable benefit of proportional representation in eliminating the party hack from political life. Proportional representation would probably break up party organisations altogether, and it would considerably enhance the importance and responsibility of the Press. It would do much to accelerate the development of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... 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 ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... length of time to give the muscles the requisite promptitude and harmony of action, the power will be ever afterward retained, although rarely called into use. But if we stop short of this point, we may reiterate practice by fits and starts without any proportional advancement. The same principle is equally applicable to the moral and intellectual powers which operate ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... the alleged superiority of the feminine mind in matter of memory. There is the same difference between the memory of the ordinary man and the man of genius. Mental recognition is proportional to the intensity of consciousness. Because the life of the genius is more continuously emotional—nearer, in fact, in its nature to the woman's—he is more ready to receive impressions and to keep them. And here we may note the incitement ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... 3, 6; here it is evident that if the second number be multiplied by the third, and the product divided by the first, the quotient is 6; when they see that by this process the number is produced which they knew beforehand to be the proportional, they infer that the process always holds good for finding a ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]

... from a light the illumination which it receives diminishes rapidly, for the strength of the illumination is inversely proportional to the square of distance of the object from the light. Our ancestors with a candle at a distance of one foot from a book were as well off as we are with an incandescent light ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... the crow would be," he said, looking at her with mock admiration, "if she only had a voice proportional ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips

... proportion is about 1 in 4. In the Bristol collection, one-sixth of the whole, was composed of oxalate of lime, nearly pure; while, including all the concretions containing more or less of the oxalate, the proportion was nearly one-half! This great disparity in the proportional frequency of this calculus in different districts of England, clearly shows the great influence of local causes, in determining the character ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the petty sums which any bankrupt of high standing would be sorry to retire upon, may be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... profits would be greater and the risk less, if all should contribute to a common treasury, intrusting to the most able members the direction of the business for the benefit of all. Then each would receive a dividend or part of the profits proportional to his share in the general treasury or "joint stock." The idea that while the company as a whole was permanent each individual could buy or sell "shares" in the joint stock, helped to make such "joint-stock" companies very popular after the opening ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... pondered over the laws of falling bodies. He verified, by experiment, the fact that the velocity acquired by falling down any slope of given height was independent of the angle of slope. Also, that the height fallen through was proportional to the square ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... to Mr. Field that a signal would take 'about 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, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... 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 of parallel bars, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... stars situated within a cone, having its vortex at the observer's eye, and its base at the very limits of the system, the angle of the cone (at the eye) being 15'. Then the cubes of the perpendiculars let fall from the eye, on the plane of the bases of the various visual cones, are proportional to the solid contents of the cones themselves, or, as the stars are supposed equally scattered within all the cones, the cube roots of the numbers of stars in each of the fields express the relative lengths of the perpendiculars. A section of the sidereal system along any great circle can ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... Rights of Man and of the Citizen" (R. 253), much like the American Declaration of Independence. This declared, among other things, that all men were born free and have equal rights, that taxes should be proportional to wealth, that all citizens were equal before the law and have a right to help make the laws, and that the people of the nation were sovereign. These principles struck at the very foundations of the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... the time of revolution (or year) of each planet is proportional to the cube of its mean ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... and its critical pressure is 86 atmos. The gas fumes strongly in moist air, and it is rapidly dissolved by water, one volume of water at 0 deg. C. absorbing 503 volumes of the gas. The gas does not obey Henry's law, that is, its solubility in water is not proportional to its pressure. It is one of the "strong" acids, being ionized to the extent of about 91.4% in decinormal solution. The strongest aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid at 15 deg. C. contains 42.9% of the acid, and has a specific ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... wish, and arrange the toes for a standing position, or curve them to your finger. If you wish to set the bird on a branch, bore a little hole under each foot a little way up the leg, and, having fixed two proportional spikes on the branch, you can in a moment transfer the bird from your finger to it, and from it to your finger, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... Bung. She had in the personal sense nothing against Mr. Bung and apart from poisoning him she had every respect for Mr. Bung. Miss De Forrest, who talks admirably on a variety of topics, expressed herself as warmly in favour of the League of Nations and as a devotee of the short ballot and proportional representation." ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... fishing, without thereby constituting himself a 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 ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... which we treat, and particularly among the princes of the House of Anjou. They were therefore in universal use among Prince John's courtiers; and the long mantle, which formed the upper garment of the Saxons, was held in proportional derision. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... it merely felt by the members of the group as something peculiar to individuals themselves whereas, in fact, it is a common possession of a group, or a type, or mankind? In the last case an attenuation of the effect of the common possession enters in, proportional to the size of the group. Common characteristics function, it is true, as a basis for union among the elements, but it does not specifically refer these elements to each other. A similarity so widely shared might serve as a common basis of each with every possible other. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... that the management of railway companies is above the average management of many other companies. We have much more work—more dangerous work—to do than other companies, and we do it with much less proportional loss ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... subjects, of an end or object, 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, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... while the ends would have a tendency to rise. The principle which has been found to be most satisfactory is to fix the points of suspension distributed over the greatest length of envelope possible proportional to the lift of gas at each section thus formed. From these points the wires are led to the car. If the car is placed close to the envelope it will be seen that the suspensions of necessity lie at a very flat angle and exert a serious longitudinal ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... there are about a dozen altogether, some of which exercise but little effect. Of course if the centres of the pulleys were all fixed the pen could not move, but the centre of each pulley describes a circle with a radius proportional to the amplitude of the corresponding tide, and in a time proportional to the period of that tide. When these pulleys are all set so as to start at the proper phases, the motion is produced by turning round a handle which makes the ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

... which comprises the expenditure necessary for the common affairs, namely for the 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, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... thereby annihilate their power of consumption; they do but transfer it from themselves to the laborers to whom they give employment. Now, there are two possible suppositions in regard to the laborers: either there is, or there is not, an increase of their numbers proportional to the increase of capital. (1.) If there is, the case offers no difficulty. The production of necessaries for the new population takes the place of the production of luxuries for a portion of the old, and supplies exactly the amount of employment which has been lost. (2.) But suppose ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... rising dangers as total prohibition, and the female franchise, the daylight saving, and eugenic marriage, together with proportional representation, the initiative and the referendum, and the duty of the citizen to take an intelligent interest in politics—and I admit that I shall not be sorry to ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... in Catholic Bavaria 13. The number of married people in Germany according to the last census shows an increase, the number of bachelors and widowed persons a decrease. Since 1871 the number of married persons has increased by 2 per cent. The birth rate shows a proportional decline. The problem that bothers all social economists is to the fore in Germany as elsewhere, for the people between sixty and seventy years of age number 14.65 per cent. of the population, while the young people under ten number only ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... center is O, and at t to the 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 the focus of the conjugate hyperbola for its construction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... heat of those from being troublesome, rich screens ornamented with gold and paintings of their idols were interposed between Montezuma and the torches. At his meals he was seated on a low throne or chair, at a table of proportional height covered with white cloths and napkins, four beautiful women attending to present him with water for his hands, in vessels named xicales, having plates under them, after which they gave him towels to dry his hands. Two other women attended ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... whole, and therefore in the end reacting for the advantage of the community at large, will assuredly do much to remove some of these difficulties. This is one reason why direct legislation and such "effective voting" as proportional representation should be earnestly advocated and supported by organized labor on all possible occasions. But that we may make full and wise use of such additional powers of democratic expression in placing public employment ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... as we have supposed our comparer to read of, he can look, in imagination, on a space of proportional extent in any part of his native country, taking a district as a detached section of a general national picture. And he can figure to himself the result, resplendent upon this tract, of so much energy, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... probable that the proportional number of those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantiation of Lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine navigation by Jonah; in water standing fathoms deep on the side of a declivity without anything to hold it up; and in devils ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Petrograd Soviet, by a dwindling majority, passed the resolution for the transfering of all power into the hands of the Soviet, our party put forth the demand to establish a coalition Executive Committee formed on a proportional basis. The old presiding body, the members of which were Cheidze, Tseretelli, Kerensky, Skobeloff, Chernoff, flatly refused this demand. It may not be out of place to mention this here, inasmuch as representatives of the parties broken up by the revolution ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... only safe thing to do is so to dress 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 ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... could never understand and 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

... reality not employed. The tax out of which the capitalisation is effected is paid by everyone only in proportion to the work he does. No one is coerced to labour, but in proportion as a man does labour he makes use of capital. What is required of him is merely an amount proportional to what he makes use of. Thus both justice and the right of self-control are satisfied in ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... square degrees. Were there but one such object, it might be maintained without utter improbability that its apparent sphericity is only an effect of foreshortening, and that in reality a much greater proportional difference of distance between its nearer and more remote parts exists. But such an adjustment, improbable enough in one case, must be rejected as too much so for fair argument in two. It must, therefore, be taken as a demonstrated fact, that stars of the seventh or eighth magnitude and irresolvable ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... assumed at the outset to be the same. Thus in the "tower," the front and back staircases and halls take up 22,000 cubic feet out of the total 106,000 cubic feet covered by the entire building. In the "flat" the proportional part of the halls and staircases for each suite is represented by a comparatively ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... 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 to the ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross

... acres of exactly the same nature had been enclosed twenty-five years previously, and planted with Scotch fir. The change in the native vegetation of the planted part of the heath was most remarkable,—more than is generally seen in passing from one quite different soil to another; not only the proportional numbers of the heath plants were wholly changed, but twelve species of plants (not counting grasses and carices) flourished in the plantations, which could not be found on the heath. The effect on the insects must have been still greater, for six insectivorous birds were very common in the plantations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... I meant, whether for all this footsoreness, this thirst and this exertion, I would be rewarded by proportional pleasure. My father did not reply. He evidently had need of all his ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... the old cut-throat!" cried Ledru Rollin. "The idea of being let loose with his mastiffs on the people of Paris, like sheep pent up in a fold, was to him a source of rapturous anticipation, and his rage at the disappointment is proportional!" ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... Diplomacy averted war with Germany for forty-three years, but it could not continue to avert war eternally. War finally broke out with a violence unparalleled in history, and possessing a magnitude proportional to the duration of the preceding peace. "Long coming long last, short notice soon past" is a sailor's maxim about storms; and it seems not inapplicable to wars. Certain it is that the frequent wars of savage tribes are far less terrible than the ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... coma, and death from arrested respiration is the final result. If the temperature of the animal be tested from time to time during the exposure, it will be found to rise steadily, and the severity of the symptoms will be directly, and in any one species constantly, proportional to the intensity of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... 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 ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... what last night's journey had presaged produced a proportional effect upon Mannering. Beneath his eye lay the modern house—an awkward mansion, indeed, in point of architecture, but well situated, and with a warm, pleasant exposure. 'How happily,' thought our hero, 'would life glide on in such a retirement! On the one hand, the striking remnants of ancient ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... that 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 separated; which by agitation ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... grains counted. If we find ten 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 stars ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... the necessary calculations in geography and astronomy, if they had but possessed the right instruments. Perhaps only an expert should deal—even in the few sentences required for our purpose—with such matters as the calculation of the capacity and proportional relations of cylinders, or with the mechanics and hydrostatics of Archimedes. That philosopher so far understood the laws of applied force that he had boasted: "Give me a place to stand on and I will move the world." What he and others had ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... convention, as some of the precincts and wards were against him, though a majority of the united convention was for him. Grant Adams, swinging his iron claw, was explaining this to the convention. He was appealing passionately for the right of proportional representation; holding that the minority had rights of representation that the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... But, on the contrary, 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

... as the prime mover;—any more than water in the boiler of a locomotive is the prime mover in the generation of the steam. Without the fuel in the furnace the steam would not be produced; and the amount of steam generated will be proportional to the quantity and heat of the fuel in the furnace and the quantity of water in the boiler. In the case of Krakatoa, both these elements were enormous and inexhaustible. The volcanic chimney (or system of chimneys), being situated ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... challenged their right to count the slaves as a basis of representation, and taunted them with bitter words. "Either count your Negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free them, let them vote, let them be elected to office. If they are cattle, let the number of deputies be proportional to your human population; we have counted neither our ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... work the way Porter expected them to, Porter would fuss and fidget with them until he got tired of them, then he would junk them and try something else. He never blamed a technician who had followed orders. Since the salaries he paid were proportional to the man's "ability and loyalty"—judged, of course, by Porter's own standards—he soon had a group of technician-artisans who knew that their personal security rested with Malcom Porter, and that personal loyalty was ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett

... even more surprising, that the intensity of the warrior instinct is directly proportional to the size of the collectivity. Two ants of enemy species meeting at a distance from their respective nests or from their own folk, will avoid one another and run away in opposite directions. Even if you come across the armies in full combat, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... and albicore chase it day and night, but the dolphin is its worst and swiftest foe. If it escape into the air, the dolphin pushes on with proportional velocity beneath, and is ready to snap it up the moment it descends to wet ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... the Generality about half of the remissions that Turgot had solicited. A greater operation was the re-adjustment of the burden, thus lightened, within the province. The people were so irritated by the disorders which had been introduced by the imperfect operation of the proportional taille, that with the characteristic impatience of a rude and unintelligent population, they were heedlessly crying out for a return to the more familiar, and therefore more comfortable, disorders of the arbitrary ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... the Dictator, "has called Mr. Scrymgeour his friend. Believe me, had I known he was thus honoured, I should have treated him with proportional respect." ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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

... 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 ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... astronomers. Galileo's telescope, which in 1610 suddenly pushed out the boundaries of the known stellar universe and brought many thousands of stars into range, had a lens about 2-1/4 inches in diameter. The area of this lens, proportional to the square of its diameter, was about eighty-one times that of the pupil of the eye. This great increase in the amount of light collected should bring to view stars down to magnitude 10.5, of which nearly half a ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... all, down to the bridge at Fochabers, and threw them into the Spey. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that it is no longer incumbent on wedding guests to drink the health of the newly married couple so fervently, and that a proportional saving in table fittings ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... unconscious of their parental dignity, and by no means to be confounded with the 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... character and value to that of San Francisco, has been discovered on the Turon River by those energetic and experienced practical miners, Messrs. Hargraves and party. The method of cradling is the same, the appliances required are simple and inexpensive, and the proportional yield of gold highly reassuring. It is impossible to forecast the results of this most momentous discovery. It will revolutionise the new world. It will liberate the old. It will precipitate Australia ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Vjera with dismay. He had never before spoken of his father and brother, except as the causes of his disasters, explaining that the powerful influence of his own friends, aided by the machinery of justice, had at last obliged them to concede him a proportional part of the fortune. Fischelowitz was accustomed to laugh at this statement, saying that if the Count were only a younger son, the law would do nothing for him and that he must continue to earn his livelihood as he could. In the course of a long time Vjera had ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... and a young 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 won. The assumption of the white ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... immediately after the conclusion of this speech. Both of the Archbishops and the twelve Bishops present voted for the bill. Our clause was carried by 134 votes to 71, and Women's Suffrage was, therefore, supported in the Lords by nearly two to one. The Lords inserted in it among other things Proportional Representation. It was on this and not on women's suffrage that the final contest took place when it was returned to the Commons, but at last the long struggle of women for free citizenship was ended, having continued a little over fifty years. The huge majorities by which ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... are to be found in many ruminant animals. The Hipparion, as the extinct European three-toed horse is called, in fact presents a foot similar to that of the American Protohippus except that in Hipparion the smaller digits are situated further back, and are of smaller proportional size than in ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... finding the point of contact I, it is known that one must find CD a third proportional to the lines CK, CG, and draw DI parallel to CM, previously determined, which is the conjugate diameter to CG; for then, by drawing KI it ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens

... peace when there is no peace. The false bonds are best broken: with their collapse would come a release of social energy into political discussion. For every country is a mass of minorities which should find a voice in public affairs. Any device like proportional representation and preferential voting which facilitates the political expression of group interests is worth having. The objection that popular government cannot be conducted without the two party system is, I believe, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... of our canoe at different intervals of space, while he told M'bo things, mainly scandalous, about the characters of the villages these bits of leaf represented, save of course about bit A, which represented his own. The interval between the bits was proportional to the interval between the villages, and the size of the bits was proportional to the size of the village. Village number four was the only one he should recommend our going to. When all was said, I gave our kindly informants some heads of tobacco and many thanks. Then ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Manchester; made his first appearance as an author in 1793 in a volume of his observations and essays, and in 1808 published "A New System of Chemical Philosophy," which he finished in 1810; famous for his experiments on the elastic force of steam, for his researches on the proportional weights of simple bodies, for his discovery of the atomic theory, as also for his investigations on colour-blindness by experimenting on himself and his brother, who along with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... idea of Direction. It is from the action of gravity that we derive our distinction between Up and Down from which as a starting-point we build up our conception of tridimensional Space. And in this respect it must be remembered that as the areas of spheres are proportional to the squares of their radii it necessarily follows that gravity if it acts uniformly in tridimensional Space must vary in intensity in proportion to the square of the distance of the point of application from the centre of origin. ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip

... the plants and bushes clothing an entangled bank, we arc tempted to attribute their proportional numbers and kinds to what we call chance. But how false a view is this! Every one has heard that when an American forest is cut down, a very different vegetation springs up; but it has been observed that the trees now growing on the ancient Indian mounds, in the Southern United States, display ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... of the more ignorant and often too hasty clearances for traffic which have often been apparently the sole motives in city improvement. The conservation of historic buildings, whenever possible, the planting of trees along our streets, the laying out of gardens, the insistence upon a proportional amount of air and open space to new buildings would go a long way towards making our bricks-and-mortar joyless wildernesses into something human ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes

... to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary temper 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

... may be 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 actual ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer

... intelligent direction, the real planning and designing and inquiry, the management and the evolution of ideas and methods, is in the enormous majority of cases done by salaried individuals working either for a fixed wage and the hope of increments having no proportional relation to the work done, or for a wage varying within definite limits. All the engineering design, all architecture, all our public services,—the exquisite work of our museum control, for example,—all the big wholesale and retail businesses, almost all big industrial concerns, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... appetite, was the constant wish of all. Sometimes the wishes were expressed aloud, but more frequently a gloomy silence prevailed. When anything was audibly wished for, it was invariably something whose size was proportional to their hunger. They never wished for a meal, or a mouthful, but for a barrel full, a wagon load, a house ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... was not renowned for piety, moved that thenceforward the sessions be opened with prayer. The deadlock was finally broken by the so-called Connecticut Compromise, adopted July 7: equal representation was to be preserved in the upper house, and proportional representation was to be granted in ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... as a rule the only living being in those dreams. Everything else consisted of lifeless things, and mostly of spaces and dimensions rather than of objects. The dominant characteristic was an increase of size proportional to the increase of distance from himself. He found himself, for instance, in the midst of a vast space laid out in squares. Where he stood at the centre, those squares were just large enough to hold him. Then, as his glance passed outward, the squares became larger and ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... in details of fact. The essential question is not, Is the presentation of life and character perfect in a photographic fashion? but Does it convey the underlying realities? 2. Other things being equal, the value of a book, and especially of an author's whole work, is proportional to its range, that is to the breadth and variety of the life and characters which it presents. 3. A student should not form his judgments merely from what is technically called the dogmatic point of view, but should try rather to adopt that of historical criticism. This means that he ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... sufficient for its needs. It is easily seen that too rapid or too slow a rate would prove injurious. The oxidations at the cells are, therefore, under such control that the quantity of kinetic energy supplied to the body as a whole, and to the different organs, is proportional to the work that is done. This is attained, in part at least, through the ability of the body to store up the food materials and hold them in reserve until they are ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... the country, there being as great differences between the climates of different parts as there are between the countries of Europe. Consequently a uniform absolute increase would be grossly unfair to some and grossly favourable to others. The increase is therefore proportional to the cost of living. Moscow is taken as a norm of 100, and when a new minimum wage is established for Moscow other districts increase their minimum wage proportionately. A table for this has been worked out, whereby in comparison with ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... will generally be welcomed as opportune. Proportional Representation has made very rapid, almost startling advances in recent years. In one shape or another it has been adopted in many countries in Northern Europe, and there is a prospect of a most important extension of this adoption ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... proportion to the body is man's brain. The average proportion of the weight of the brain to the weight of the body is greater in man than in most animals, being about 1 to 36. In some small birds, in the smaller monkeys, and in some rodents, the proportional weight of the brain to that of the body is even greater than ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... been at pains to 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 of the Centurion's chaplain, by Mr Robins in his own style ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... piston, 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... Representation.—Proportional representation, which is coming into favor in these days, would doubtless do much toward remedying this abuse. According to the present system of electing representatives by districts, large minorities of voters are not represented. Numerous plans of "Proportional Representation" ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... different from what last night's journey had presaged, produced a proportional effect upon Mannering. Beneath his eye lay the modern house; an awkward mansion, indeed, in point of architecture, but well situated, and with a warm, pleasant exposure.—How happily, thought our hero, would life glide on in such ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... resistance of the Allies; he has (conditionally) 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 is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various

... ions 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 ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot



Words linked to "Proportional" :   proportional sample, proportionality, proportion, proportional counter, proportional tax, relative, proportional sampling



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com