Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

Now refer to Fig. 22, and we shall see that the line A B and the boundary of the shell will practically correspond. So that

any section of a spherical wave front will always be at right angles to the ray of light. But we have learned from [Art. 89] that these sections of the aetherial spherical shell are really identical with Faraday's Lines of Force, with the result that along any line which stretches from the North pole of the sun to the South pole, there will ever be an electric vibration, which is put into motion by the elasticity of the aetherial vortex atoms. So that on every side of the sun there is ever going on this electric vibration, along the lines of force which correspond to a section of the aetherial shell, the surface of which really constitutes the wave front.

Therefore it can readily be seen, that, as these lines are at right angles to the propagation of the ray of light, the electric vibration is at right angles to the lines of propagation, and is thus in accordance with the result demanded by Maxwell's theory.

We have now to give a physical conception of the magnetic vibration or motion of the Aether, and this has to be at right angles to both the electric vibration and the line of propagation.

In [Art. 91] we have learned that the Aether possesses a rotatory motion, by which it rotates round the central body of the solar system, the sun. So that if we take any point, for example, in the path of the ray as S₁, S₂, S₃, and S₄, situated upon some definite equipotential surface or lines of force, and if we will imagine those lines to rotate round the sun, as the sun rotates on its axis, then in time the points will have described half the circle, and will come to the position on the right of the sun indicated by the same Nos. S₁, S₂, S₃, S₄. Thus there has been an aetherial motion at right angles to the electric motion, as the Aether circulates round the sun, because this motion may be represented as taking place from west to east of the sun, while the electric vibration takes place from north to south, or transverse to the line of propagation.

We have, however, learned that the Aether has an electro-magnetic basis, and therefore the rotation of the Aether gives rise to electro-magnetic currents; hence the motion west to east is really the motion of electro-magnetic currents which circulate round the sun. As these are at right angles to the line of propagation, and we have seen that they are at right angles to the electric vibration, it follows that all three are at right angles to each other, which is in accordance with the requirements as laid down by Maxwell.

We have considered these vibrations, first, from the view of the solar system as a whole in its relation to the universal Aether; but the same principle holds good if considered from the aetherial atomic standpoint. For if we take a line of force, composed as it is of aetherial vortex atoms, and suppose them to be rotating, we know that by that rotation there will be a tension due to that rotation, and Maxwell has shown this tension is due to magnetism, as in his standard work he says: “This magnetic force is the effect of the Centrifugal Force of the Vortices.“

So that by postulating a rotatory movement for the Aether around the sun, as we have done in [Art. 92], we have not only solved the problem of all planetary and solar magnetism, but we have also solved the problem of the relative motion of the Aether and the earth, and also given for the first time (though it may be in an incomplete form) a physical explanation of that part of the electro-magnetic theory of light, which has hitherto been unexplained from the purely physical standpoint.

Such results, therefore, supported as they are by the direct experiment of Michelson and Morley of America, justify us in concluding that the conception of a rotating Aether is not only philosophically correct, but is in actual accord with experimental investigation and research, as indeed it ought to be.