1 Chapter IV. CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV Chapter X. Aether and Gravitation, by William George 2 Aether and Gravitation, by William George The Project Gutenberg eBook, Aether and Gravitation, by William George Hooper This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Aether and Gravitation Author: William George Hooper Release Date: February 22, 2008 [eBook #24667] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AETHER AND GRAVITATION*** E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Ronnie Sahlberg, Bill Tozier, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 24667-h.htm or 24667-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/4/6/6/24667/24667-h/24667-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/4/6/6/24667/24667-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Numbers preceded by a carat character are superscripts (example: 3^2 = 9). Numbers preceded by an tilde are subscripts (example: CO~2) Text enclosed by underscores is italicized. A detailed transcriber's note is at the end of the text. AETHER AND GRAVITATION by WILLIAM GEORGE HOOPER, F.S.S. [Illustration] London Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 1903 INTRODUCTORY NOTES The author in this work endeavours to solve the greatest scientific problem that has puzzled scientists for the Aether and Gravitation, by William George 3 past two hundred years. The question has arisen over and over again, since the discovery of universal gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton, as to what is the physical cause of the attraction of gravitation. "Action at a distance" has long ceased to be recognized as a possible phenomenon, although up to the present, the medium and method of gravitational attraction have not yet been discovered. It is, however, generally accepted by scientists, that the only possible medium which can give rise to the phenomena incidental to, and associated with the Law of Gravitation, must be the universal aether, which forms the common medium of all phenomena associated with light, heat, electricity and magnetism. It is impossible, however, to reconcile gravitational phenomena with the present conception of the universal aether medium, and a new theory is therefore demanded, before the long-sought-for explanation will be forthcoming. Professor Glazebrook definitely states the necessity for a new theory in his work on J. C. Maxwell, page 221, where he writes: "We are waiting for some one to give us a theory of the aether, which shall include the facts of electricity and magnetism, luminous radiation, and it may be gravitation." A new theory of the aether is also demanded in view of the recent experimental results of Professor Lebedew, and Nichols and Hull of America. It is logically impossible to reconcile a frictionless aether, with their results relative to the pressure of light waves. In the following pages of this work the author has endeavoured to perfect a theory, which will bring aetherial physics more into harmony with modern observation and experiments; and by so doing, believes that he has found the key that will unlock the problem not only of the cause of universal gravitation, but also other problems of physical science. The author has taken Newton's Rules of Philosophy as his guide in the making of the new theory, as he believes that if any man knew anything of the rules of Philosophy, that man was Sir Isaac Newton. The first chapter therefore deals with the generally recognized rules which govern philosophical reasoning, the same being three in number; the fundamental rule being, that in making any hypothesis, the results of experience as obtained by observation and experiments must not be violated. In applying the rules to the present theory of the aether, he found that the theory as at present recognized violated two of the most important rules of Philosophy, because, while aether is supposed to be matter, yet it failed to fulfil the primary property of all matter, that is, it is not subject to the Law of Gravitation. If aether is matter, then, to be strictly logical and philosophical, it must possess the properties of matter as revealed by observation and experiment. Those properties are given in Chapter III., where it is shown that they are atomicity, heaviness or weight, elasticity, density, inertia, and compressibility. To be strictly logical and philosophical, the author was compelled to postulate similar properties for the aether, or else his hypotheses would contravert the results of all experience. The application of these properties to the aether will be found in Chapter IV. 4 Chapter IV. , where the author has postulated atomicity, heaviness or weight, density, elasticity, inertia, and compressibility for the aether, and so brought the theory of the aether into perfect harmony with all observation and experiments relative to ordinary matter. It will be shown that Clerk Maxwell also definitely affirms the atomicity of the aether, while Tyndall and Huyghens also use the term "particles of aether" over and over again. Moreover, in view of the most recent researches in electricity made by Sir William Crookes and Professor J. J. Thomson, we are compelled to accept an atomic basis for electricity, and as Dr. Lodge, in his Modern Views of Electricity, states that "Aether is made up of positive and negative electricity," then, unless we postulate atomicity for the aether, we have to suppose that it is possible for a non-atomic body (aether) to be made up of atoms or corpuscles, which conclusion is absurd, and therefore must be rejected as illogical and unphilosophical. After postulating atomicity for the aether, we are then able to apply the Newtonian Law of Gravitation to it, which distinctly affirms that "every particle of matter attracts every other particle," and so we arrive at Thomas Young's fourth hypothesis given in the Philosophical Transactions of 1802, where he asserts that "All material bodies have an attraction for the aetherial medium, by means of which it is accumulated within their substance, and for a small distance around them in a state of greater density." He adds the significant remark that this hypothesis is opposed to that of Newton's. With an atomic and gravitative aether it is shown in Chapter IV. how the elasticity, density, and inertia of the medium are brought into harmony with all observation and experiments. In the succeeding chapters the new theory is applied to the phenomena of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, and the principles enunciated therein are then applied to solar and stellar phenomena. One of the greatest stumbling-blocks to the discovery of the physical cause of gravitation, apart from the unphilosophical theory of the aether medium, lies in the fact that apparently the Law of Gravitation only recognizes a force of one kind. Dr. Lodge refers to this phase of the subject on page 39 of his Modern Views of Matter just published. It is here where scientists have failed to solve the problem of universal gravitation, as there are two forces at work in the solar system and not one; that is, if we are to accept the results of up-to-date experiments in relation to radiant light and heat as performed by Professor Lebedew, and Nichols and Hull of America. Their experiments conclusively prove that light waves exert a pressure upon all bodies on which they fall, and by no reasoning can this pressure be resolved into an attractive force. Herschel in his Lectures on Scientific Subjects definitely refers to the existence of a repulsive force in the solar system, and asserts that it offers the most interesting prospect of any future discovery. The author has therefore attacked the problem of the cause of gravitation, by trying to solve the problem of the cause of the repulsive force which has been experimentally demonstrated to exist by Professor Lebedew and others. In his efforts to ascertain the physical cause of the Centrifugal Force, he has been assisted by an unknown and original essay written by an unknown writer over twenty years ago. That unknown writer was the author's father, who wrote an essay on the Complementary Law of Gravitation, and if it had not been for that essay, the present work would never have been attempted. The main object of the author in Chapters VI., VII., and VIII., is to prove beyond the possibility of contradiction, from the phenomena of heat, light, and electricity, the existence of two forces in the solar system; and by so doing, to bring our philosophy of the aether medium, and all gravitational phenomena, into harmony with all observation and experiments, which at present is not the case. In seeking to do this he found Chapter IV. 5 that the new theory of the aether harmonized with views given, by Faraday and Clerk Maxwell in relation to electric and magnetic phenomena, and by the new theory Maxwell's hypothesis of "Physical Lines of Force" receives a definite and physical basis. In Chapter X. the author endeavours to show what the Electro-Kinetic energy is, which term is used by Clerk Maxwell, the term being brought for the first time into harmony with our experience.