Aether and Gravitation

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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 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., 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.