Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

Thus the actual result of the rotatory electro-magnetic Aether currents will be, that all dependent and associated planets under their influence will be carried by them around the central body which generates the Aether currents. So that they will literally and truly have an orbit, and the circle they describe will be, in its size and circumference, regulated by the mean distance of each planet, which mean distance will form the radius of the circular orbit.

Further, as we shall see later, if the sun were always stationary, and had no orbital motion of its own, then the orbit of each planet would always be circular, each planet always occupying its mean distance from the sun, because at that mean distance the centripetal and centrifugal forces are equal.

That the actual path of any planet is a circle has been proved by Sir W. R. Hamilton. Tait, in his Natural Philosophy, on this point writes (Art. 38): “The Hodograph for the motion of a planet or comet is always a circle, whatever be the form and dimensions of the orbit.” This path has been termed the Hodograph. So that we have in the circling electro-magnetic Aether currents a physical explanation for the Hodograph of any planet.

In applying the rotatory Aether currents to the various planets, and in endeavouring to find out the quantity of the force impressed upon the various planets at their mean distances, by those currents, we have to take into consideration, as we have already seen, two facts, viz. the mass of the Aether at any point in space, and the velocity of the Aether at the same point. We will first take the effect of the difference in mass. We have seen that at the distance of Mercury from the sun the density of the Aether is greater than at the distance of Venus, and that the density at Mars is greater than the aetherial density at the Earth, the aetherial density decreasing the further the Aether recedes from the sun.

What, therefore, is the effect of the decreased density of the Aether on each planet? Even supposing the velocity of the moving Aether is the same at the respective mean planetary distances, which it is not, the total impressed force at the respective mean planetary distances will gradually be decreased upon the various planets, proportionate to the decrease in the mass and density of the Aether.

So that on Mercury, which is pushed along by a denser electro-magnetic Aether than Venus, the impressed force, according to Newton's Second Law of Motion, will be greater than the impressed force exerted by the moving electro-magnetic Aether on Venus; and, consequently, Mercury should have a greater velocity through space than Venus, due partly to the difference of the aetherial mass and density, by which the impressed force or motive power that acts upon Mercury is produced.

In the same way, Venus should have a greater velocity through space than Mars, and Mars a greater velocity than the Earth. The same principle, when applied to the outer planets, equally holds good; with the result, that the greater the mean distance, the less the orbital velocity of each planet, due partly to the decreased aetherial density at the increased distance from the sun. But this is only part of the cause. Not only is there a decrease in density of the Aether, as the distance from the sun is increased, but there is also a decrease in the velocity of the moving Aether, with the result that the Aether at the distance of Mercury, possesses a greater angular velocity than at the distance of Venus.

It may be at once asked, How do we know that? Well, Philosophy alone can give us the key, and Philosophy tells us to base our theories and hypotheses on experience and experiment. Now what does experiment and experience teach us as to the effect of a body revolving in any medium upon that medium? If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us that the further away any medium is from the revolving body, the less is the angular velocity of that medium at that distance, while the nearer the medium is to the revolving body, the greater is the angular velocity.

This applies in each and every case, whether the medium is either fluid or gaseous, and I will challenge the reader to perform any experiment on any solid body rotating in a fluid or gaseous medium, and prove by that experiment that the angular velocity of the outermost part of the fluid or gaseous medium is equal to the angular velocity of the medium directly associated with the body, or even at a short distance from it.

But we have most conclusive evidence of the fact that a solid body does not communicate all its rotational surface motion to the medium directly in contact with that body in the case of the earth revolving on its axis, surrounded by an atmosphere. If the principle held good anywhere in relation to a revolving body, viz. that the whole of the rotational velocity is communicated to the medium surrounding the body, it should certainly hold good at the surface of the body where the two media, the solid and gaseous media, meet.