Aether and Gravitation by William George Hooper The author in this work endeavours to solve the greatest scientific problem that has puzzled scientists for the past two hundred years. The question has arisen over and over again, since the discovery of universal gravitation by Sir Isaac Newton, as to what is the physical cause of the attraction of gravitation. "Action at a distance" has long ceased to be recognized as a possible phenomenon, although up to the present, the medium and method of gravitational attraction have not yet been discovered. It is, however, generally accepted by scientists, that the only possible medium which can give rise to the phenomena incidental to, and associated with the Law of Gravitation, must be the universal aether, which forms the common medium of all phenomena associated with light, heat, electricity and magnetism. It is impossible, however, to reconcile gravitational phenomena with the present conception of the universal aether medium, and a new theory is therefore demanded, before the long-sought-for explanation will be forthcoming. Professor Glazebrook definitely states the necessity for a new theory in his work on J. C. Maxwell, page 221, where he writes: "We are waiting for some one to give us a theory of the aether, which shall include the facts of electricity and magnetism, luminous radiation, and it may be gravitation." We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

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Excerpt from The Foundations of Einstein's Theory of Gravitation Eyes for all our knowledge of the universe, which extended no further than we could see. Even the invention of the telescope did not disturb this proposition, but it is otherwise with the invention of the photographic plate. It is now conceivable that a blind man, by taking photographs and ren dering their records in some way decipherable by his fingers, could investigate the universe; but still it would remain true, that all his knowledge of anything outside the earth would be derived from the use of light and would therefore be limited by its properties. On this little earth there is, indeed, a tiny corner of the universe accessible to other senses: but feeling and taste act only at those minute distances which separate particles of matter when in contact: smell ranges over, at the utmost, a mile or two; and the greatest distance which sound is ever known to have travelled (when Krakatoa exploded in i8s3) is but a few thousand miles - a mere fraction of the earth's girdle. The scale of phenomena manifested through agencies other than light is so small that we are unlikely to reach any noteworthy precision by their study. Few people who are not astronomers have spent much thought on the limitations introduced by the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A Theory of Gravitation, and Related Phenomena In explaining the phenomena of inertia, electric currents, magnetism, chemical affinity, and radiant energy, the above alternative assumptions concerning the character of the distortion lead to essentially similar lines of reasoning, but the treatment on the assumption of radial distortion is very much simpler. For this reason it is used here. In the case of static electricity only the assumption of circular distortion, opposite in direction in the two kinds of electric elements, will explain the facts. The extension of the theory to static electricity is left for future treatment. It must be remembered, however, that the development of the theory on the basis of radial distortion differs only in detail, not in principle, from that on the basis of circular distortion. The Atom. - The atom is assumed to consist, at least in part, of a Saturnian system of electrons in rapid orbital motion. It will be shown that such orbital motion, with the assumptions here made, would give rise to a pressure in the ether such as Newton showed would account for gravitation. Physicists are agreed that the phenomena of inertia, the electric current, magnetism, and possibly also chemical affinity are probably related to each other in such manner that when we find the explanation of one of them this explanation will also throw light on the others. It will be seen in what follows that the theory of gravitation here presented appears also to offer suggestions as to the nature of these other forces, as well as a possible explanation of them. Inertia. Let c, Fig. Ia, be an electron stationary in the ether. At a certain undetermined distance from the center of this electron (equal to what we may call its radius) we may assume a maximum radial distortion of the ether, and we may regard the spherical shell at this distance as the surface of the electron. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.