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AETHER AND GRAVITATION
AETHER
AND
GRAVITATION
BY
WILLIAM GEORGE HOOPER, F.S.S.
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ltd.
1903
INTRODUCTORY NOTES
The author in this work endeavours to solve the greatest scientificproblem that has puzzled scientists for the past two hundred years. Thequestion has arisen over and over again, since the discovery ofuniversal gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton, as to what is the physicalcause of the attraction of gravitation.
“Action at a distance” has long ceased to be recognized as a possiblephenomenon, although up to the present, the medium and method ofgravitational attraction have not yet been discovered.
It is, however, generally accepted by scientists, that the only possiblemedium which can give rise to the phenomena incidental to, andassociated 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 thepresent conception of the universal aether medium, and a new theory istherefore demanded, before the long-sought-for explanation will beforthcoming.
Professor Glazebrook definitely states the necessity for a new theory inhis work on J. C. Maxwell, page 221, where he writes: “We are waitingfor some one to give us a theory of the aether, which shall include thefacts of electricity and magnetism, luminous radiation, and it may begravitation.”
A new theory of the aether is also demanded in view of the recentexperimental results of Professor Lebedew, and Nichols and Hull ofAmerica. 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 toperfect a theory, which will bring aetherial physics more into harmonywith modern observation and experiments; and by so doing, believes thathe has found the key that will unlock the problem not only of the causeof universal gravitation, but also other problems of physical science.The author has taken Newton's Rules of Philosophy as his guide in themaking of the new theory, as he believes that if any man knew anythingof the rules of Philosophy, that man was Sir Isaac Newton. The firstchapter therefore deals with the generally recognized rules which governphilosophical reasoning, the same being three in number; the fundamentalrule being, that in making any hypothesis, the results of experience asobtained by observation and experiments must not be violated.
In applying the rules to the present theory of the aether, he found thatthe theory as at present recognized violated two of the most importantrules of Philosophy, because, while aether is supposed to be matter, yetit failed to fulfil the primary property of all matter, that is, it isnot subject to the Law of Gravitation. If aether is matter, then, to bestrictly logical and philosophical, it must possess the properties ofmatter as revealed by observation and experiment.
Those properties are given in Chapter III., where it is shown that theyare atomicit