Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

Therefore, if the frictionless Aether, which possesses no mass and weight, is to be condensed into gaseous or solid matter, there must come a period in the process of condensation when it must pass out of the condition of possessing no mass and no weight, into the condition of possessing mass and weight, which assumption is altogether opposed to those Rules of Philosophy based upon experiment and observation.

Aether can only pass into a gaseous or solid condition, in which condition it will possess mass and weight, on the assumption that in the aetherial condition it possesses the same properties, only in a modified form, which it possesses after the process of condensation has taken place. In a similar way that air can pass out of its gaseous condition into a liquid condition, or any gas can pass out of its gaseous into a liquid condition, so Aether, on the conception as given in Chapter [IV]., can pass out of its aetherial and rarefied condition into that form of matter which is known as gaseous. We shall deal with this aspect of Aether more fully when we come to deal with the Nebular Hypothesis, as the same principle underlies that hypothesis as underlies the origin and development of comets.

Thus, comets may be formed at any time in interstellar space out of the Aether that exists there, provided the conditions of its formation are to be found there. Then, as they are gradually formed, they would, like any other bodies, come more directly under the influence of any large bodies, as the sun, and be attracted by them.

This conception of the origin and development of a comet will also account, and that on a logical and philosophical basis, for another fact which is associated with cometary phenomena. I refer to the fact of the expulsion of gaseous matter out of the head of a comet as it nears the sun, which expulsion will be dealt with in the article on “Parts of a Comet.”

Another problem that might be solved by this conception of a comet lies in the question, as to whether comets shine by their own light?

If comets are really formed of condensed Aether, as I believe them to be, then, as light is due to a periodic wave motion of the Aether, as soon as the Aether (of which the comets' tails, for example, were formed) was made to vibrate with that rapidity sufficient to produce light waves in the surrounding Aether, the tails would then shine by their own light, in exactly the same way that any other body emits light waves, as soon as its aetherial vibrations reach the rapidity necessary to produce the waves of light, which vibrations would lie between 2000 to 8000 billions per second.

The number of the comets that exist in the solar system cannot be ascertained with any degree of accuracy, but the total probably extends into millions. They are of all sizes, from those which possess diameters of several miles, to those extending over thousands of miles. They also possess orbits, with which we will now deal.

Art. 112. Orbits of Comets.--As has already been pointed out, comets perform their journey round the sun, not only in the plane of the ecliptic, but also at all angles relatively to that plane. In this respect they differ from the orbits of planets and satellites, which perform their journey in orbits situated wholly in the plane of the ecliptic ([Art. 109]).

There is another important difference between the orbits of the comets and those of the planets. In the case of the latter the orbit is that of an ellipse, while in the case of the comet the orbit may be either that of a parabola or a hyperbola, which may be looked upon as elongated ellipses open at one end. There are, however, some comets whose orbits are perfectly elliptical, and whose return may be calculated with a fair amount of accuracy.

These are known either as Short Period Comets, as represented by Faye's Comet, Encke's and De Vico's; or Long Period Comets, as represented by the comets of 1811, 1844, and 1858. In the case of all these, as their return to our solar system can be determined, it follows that they must revolve around the sun in some sort of a closed orbit, probably that of an exceedingly elongated ellipse.