Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

Let us take the sun and Mercury as an example of the effect of the two motions operating in the aetherial medium. We will consider first the effect of the centrifugal motion. The sun, with its huge form, occupies the centre of the solar system, while Mercury has its mean distance about 36,000,000 miles away.

The solar fires are intensely burning, and every atom and every particle composing them are excited thereby into the most intense activity, and by their energy of motion create myriads upon myriads of waves in the surrounding Aether, which flow away on every side with the velocity of light.

With such velocity are they generated, that they speed across the distance of 36,000,000 miles which exist between Mercury and the sun in the short time of about three minutes, and if it were not for the aetherial and aerial atmosphere of the planet, would fall upon the surface of Mercury with an intensity of heat that would scorch up all vegetable life, if any existed thereon.

Now let us for a moment ignore the existence of the centripetal force, and then in that light view the influence of the electro-magnetic Aether waves upon Mercury. We have seen that when aetherial light waves come into contact with any body, they exert a pressure upon that body ([Art. 77]), so that under the influence of the centrifugal force only, Mercury would be borne away from its central body, the sun, with a power and energy of motion entirely dependent upon the intensity of the electro-magnetic Aether waves which give rise to the centrifugal force.

Thus Mercury would be carried away from the sun, far far away into the depths of space, with ever-decreasing rapidity, the rapidity of its motion through space being entirely dependent upon the intensity and energy of the Aether waves; and, as that intensity varies inversely as the square of the distance from the central body, the sun, so the impelling and repelling energy of the Aetherial waves would vary inversely as the square of the distance from the central body.

Thus the motion of Mercury or any other planet through space would not be uniform, but would gradually decrease, and such a result is perfectly in harmony with all experience and experiment in relation to moving bodies on this earth.

This effect of the Aetherial electro-magnetic light waves upon a planet is in harmony with Newton's nineteenth query in Optics, and is indeed the physical illustration of that query in its corrected form which we have already referred to in [Art. 46], where Newton says: “Doth it (Aether) not grow denser and denser, etc.; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?”

That the Aether does grow denser and denser nearer to a body we have already seen in [Art. 46], and now we learn that a body, when under the influence of the centrifugal force only, would pass from the denser parts of a medium to the rarer parts, as suggested by Newton. We will now suppose that Mercury has been repelled, by the pressure due to the aetherial waves generated by the sun, to the distance of Neptune, a distance of 2,780,000,000 miles; and that at this point the centrifugal force is cancelled, and in its place is put the centripetal force of Gravitation. What will be the effect upon Mercury then? At first sight the effect will be exceedingly slight, but slowly, yet surely, the attractive power of the sun would begin to make itself manifest, and we should find Mercury retracing its path along exactly the same straight line that it had taken in its outward journey.

Not only so, but its motion would be accelerated just in the same proportion that it had decreased on its outward journey. On and on through the intervening space the planet would rush, and if there were no centrifugal force in existence, the planet would ultimately rush into the central body, the sun, and being swallowed up by it, would maintain for a time the heat thereof.

Let us now view the case from the conjoint working of these forces, or motions, the centripetal and centrifugal, and we shall see, that under certain conditions it is possible to conceive physically of a planet being in a state of rest as stated in Newton's First Law of Motion, and also remaining in that state of rest, until it is compelled by other forces or motions to change that state. Mercury is now situated at its mean distance of about 36,000,000 miles. At the same instant let both the centrifugal and the centripetal forces or motions be applied to it, and to the sun. What is the result of such application? Will the planet move nearer the sun, which we are supposing to be perfectly at rest, or will it be urged further away? The effect is nil! for the simple reason, that when we set in motion the centripetal force of Gravitation, at exactly the same time we set in motion an exactly opposite force which is the exact complement and counterpart of the other, so that they exactly counterbalance each other, and Mercury under the influence of both forces still retains its mean position of 36,000,000 miles; and, until we either set the sun rotating, or give it a motion of its own through space, Mercury would remain at its distance of 36,000,000 miles comparatively at rest. The same reasoning may be applied to all the other planets, in relation to their mean distances, with the result that they too would remain in a comparative state of rest, so long as they were only under the influence of the two forces or motions, viz. the centrifugal and centripetal.