Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

It is impossible to conceive of the sun moving in an elliptic orbit, and yet not moving around some central body, as we should have a celestial phenomenon altogether opposed to all experience and observation. For we have already seen that the central body is just as important a factor to the elliptic orbit as the planet itself, because, without the central body there cannot possibly be any elliptic orbit. Where then in the universe is the central body around which the sun revolves? What is its distance away from the sun? What is its size? These are questions that philosophy alone cannot answer, as there is no law, so far as I can see, that regulates the size and distance of the central body in proportion to the size and distance of the planets or satellites.

If there were, then it would be possible for philosophy to apply such a law or rule. That there is a central body around which the sun revolves is as true as the fact that there is a central body about which each planet revolves, or each satellite revolves, and it remains for the practical astronomer, or the mathematician, to endeavour to discover the exact part of the heavens in which it is situated, and ascertain its distance and possibly its size. What will be the effect of the existence of this central body of the sun upon the solar system? One effect will be to do away with that isolation that up to the present has apparently existed with regard to our solar system and stellar space.

Instead of the solar system being a solitary system that moves through space subject to apparently no law, and moved by apparently no physical power, that system, through the influence and effect of the aetherial currents originated by that central body, will be linked to other parts of the universe, and will become a part of one harmonious whole, its physical connection being made manifest and plain in the self-same electro-magnetic Aether medium that forms the connecting medium between the satellites and planets, or the planets and the sun.

Another result will be, that as the sun is a star, we shall be able to apply the self-same principles and laws of Kepler to the stellar world in exactly the same way that we have done to the solar system. Thus, by bringing all stellar phenomena under the influence of Kepler's Laws, we shall be able to philosophically give an unity to the universe, and show, within rational limits, how such unity may be physically conceived, which result will be an advance upon any physical conception of the universe hitherto manifested or revealed. Further, by accepting the first of Kepler's Laws in relation to the sun, and admitting the existence of a central body, we shall be able then to apply the second of Kepler's Laws, and by so doing shall be able to give a physical explanation of two scientific facts which up to the present have never been physically explained, viz. the physical conception of the plane of the ecliptic, and a physical explanation of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, which is but the result of the application of Kepler's Second Law to the sun's orbital motion around its central body.

Art. 108. The Sun and Kepler's Second Law.--We will now proceed to apply the second of Kepler's Laws to the orbital motion of the sun, and, in so doing, shall find we are able to give at the same time a physical explanation of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit.

In order to obtain a physical conception of the sun's orbital motion according to Kepler's First Law, it is essential that we should consider the effect of the existence of a central body around which the sun revolves; or, to put the matter into another form, we will ask the question as to what is the physical cause of the sun revolving round that central body?

Let us look at the case for a moment. Here, according to astronomical observation, we find a certain phenomenon which takes the form of a huge body 865,000 miles in diameter moving through space with a velocity of nearly 500,000 miles per day. What then is the physical cause of the movement of this large sphere?

Certainly there must be some physical cause, or else we have a violation of all experience, which indisputably teaches us that no body moves unless it is either pushed or pulled. We have, however, done away with a pulling power so far as the cause of the actual revolution of bodies around a central body is concerned, and in its place have substituted a medium that pushes or carries them round each central body. For over 200 years the scientific world has accepted a pulling power, that is, an attractive power, solely as the cause of the movements of celestial bodies, with the result that the physical cause of all the motions of planets and satellites has been outstanding and undiscovered.

It would, therefore, be unphilosophical to revert to the old conception of a gravitating attractive power as the sole cause of the sun's orbital motion through space. If we desire to know what is the cause of its revolution round that central body, then we must seek to find the same from the result of observation and experience in other directions.

We have learned from [Art. 102] that the orbital motion of the moon is caused by the electro-magnetic Aether currents that circulate round its central body, the earth. By the same means every satellite is circled round its central body also. We have also learned from [Art. 99] that the earth is carried round the sun by the circulating and rotating electro-magnetic Aether currents, and that these same currents also form the physical cause of the revolution of all the other planets round their central body, the sun.