William Bower Taylor

“ The inferences then that the conduct of the " radiometer " affords any key to the problem of celestial mechanics, or that it illustrates or suggests any analogous "agent acting constantly according to certain laws" as " the cause of gravity," are evidently unfounded and erroneous. " Nor must we forget that the more rigidly we scrutinize our received theories, our routine explanations and interpretation of nature, and the more frankly we admit their shortcomings, the greater will be our ultimate reward." ”

“ It is not unlikely that in the experiments here recorded may be found the key of some as yet unsolved problems in celestial mechanics. In the sun's radiation passing through the quasivacuum of space we have the radial repulsive force, possessing successive propagation, required to account for the changes of form in the lighter matter of comets and nebulae ; . . . . but until we measure the force more exactly, we shall be unable to say how much influence it may have in keeping the heavenly bodies at their respective distances. ”

“ Although the force of which I have spoken is clearly not gravity solely, as we know it, it is attraction developed from chemical activity, and connecting that greatest and most mysterious of all natural forces, action at a distance, with the more intelligible acts of matter. ”