Aether and Gravitation

by William George Hooper

But I venture to suggest, that there is a method which is strictly philosophical in its application, by which we may possibly arrive at a clear conception of an aetherial atom. All great discoveries of science have been the outcome of applying the principle, that what is true of the visible and seen, is true of the invisible and unseen; that what is true of the known, is true of the unknown; that the principles and laws which govern the small also govern the large and the great. It was thus that Newton discovered his great Law of Gravitation, as he was able from the falling of an apple, to rise to the application of the same principle to our satellite the moon, and this led him on to the discovery of the Law of Gravitation.

If, therefore, in Philosophy, the laws governing the small things are also applicable to the great things, then the converse equally holds good, that the laws governing great things are the reflex of the laws which govern the small things. For example, the laws which govern the light and heat of the sun are the same which govern the light and heat of a candle or a glow-worm; and the laws which govern a planet or world are the same as those which govern an atom. Thus a planet or world, which is simply an agglomeration of atoms, may reveal to us in its motions and laws, what are the motions and laws which govern the atomic world.

In looking at the properties and motions of a planet, therefore, as our earth for example, we find that a planet is a sphere, or more correctly an oblate spheroid; that the earth or planet is a magnet possessing polarity, having a north and south pole; that it has rotation on an axis, in addition to translation in an orbit, and that it is subject to the universal Law of Gravitation.

If, therefore, it holds good in Philosophy, that the small things are the index to the greater, and that the laws governing the small things also govern the greater, then the converse holds good, that what is true of the large is true of the small, and that the laws governing the great also govern the small.

So that gathering up those chief properties of the earth to which I have already referred, and applying them to an aetherial atom, or any other atom if necessary, we arrive at the conclusion that an atom must be spherical in shape, must possess rotation, and must have an orbit, must possess polarity, and also be subject to the universal Law of Gravitation.

Here, then, we have given to us certain data by which we are enabled to form our conception of an atom, aetherial or otherwise. The question arises, whether, among the forms of atoms which have been devised by scientists, any of the atoms so conceived fulfil all, or nearly all of these requirements. We have Boscovitch's Atom, the Hard Atom of Lucretius, and the more recent conception of the Vortex Atom of Lord Kelvin. Of all the hypotheses in regard to the ultimate nature and constitution of an atom, the Vortex Theory probably is the one which offers to the mind the simplest conception of an aetherial atom.

The Vortex Ring Atom, however, which has been so fully developed by Lord Kelvin, hardly fulfils all the requirements of an aetherial atom. In the first place it is not spherical in shape, and I hold that to be one of the fundamental bases of the aetherial atom. Then, in the next place it does not, so far as I can read, possess polarity; that is, it does not possess a north and south pole, through being a magnet in the same way as the earth is a magnet. We must therefore look for a modification of the vortex ring to discover the constitution of our aetherial atom, and I venture to think that such a modification is to be found in Professor Hill's conception of a Spherical Vortex Atom (Phil. Trans., 1894).

In the conception there put forward, and mathematically worked out, Professor Hill showed that his spherical vortex atom possessed similar properties and characteristics to the vortex rings of Lord Kelvin. So that the spherical vortex atom would possess rotation on an axis, and it would be a magnet, as I shall prove later on, because it rotates in an electro-magnetic medium. It would possess elasticity, compressibility, inertia, and, further, would possess a certain amount of mass. That mass might be infinitely small, but nevertheless it would possess mass of an infinitesimal order.

Further, if we are to be strictly correct, in our analogy between the earth and the aetherial atom, its polar diameter must be shorter than its equatorial diameter, as that is one of the facts observable regarding the shape of our earth, so that the shape of the aetherial atom will not be strictly spherical, but its actual shape would be that of an oblate spheroid, being flatter at the poles, and bulging out in the equatorial regions.

This exact analogy between the earth and an aetherial atom may not at present seem of very great importance, but its importance will be seen later on, when we come to deal with the phenomena of heat, light, and electricity.