Artificial gravity

“ Thus if the conception of atoms is applied to the unequal and unequally-placed bodies of such a world as that presented to us, the law of universal attraction follows, and gravity is mechanically explained, that is, is referred to a mechanical conception. But it must be understood that the above proposition is given rather to show that as an actual law, universal attraction may be deduced from the theoretical conception of universal repulsion, than with any pretension to its being the best attainable form of an explanation of the law. ”

“ If an atom were isolated in space it would have no weight. If influenced by other matter, there must be some physical medium to convey the influence, or gravity is not in accordance with the laws of force and motion. Which horn of the dilemma shall we take? Let us first admit that there is a principle of gravitation, affecting all planetary or atomic matter, and that there exists a highly elastic medium, pervading all space, conveying to us the light of the most distant stars, and that this medium is not affected by gravity. ”

“ We will next endeavor to prove that the gravity of planetary matter could not exist without this ethereal medium, by showing that it is an effect produced by the interference of opposing waves, whereby a body is prevented from radiating into space its own atomic motion, from the side opposite which another body is placed, as much as on the opposite side, and consequently it is propelled by its own motion towards the other body. And this effect following the simple law of inertia and radiation, is directly as the mass, and inversely as the squares of the distances. ”

“ This is in harmony with the principle of conservation, for pressure or force diminishes as energy or work increases. But in the case of gravitation matters are reversed, for the force increases along with the work. As the weight descends and performs work, the pressure of the weight, the thing which performs the work, increases also; and when the weight is rising and energy diminishing, the force or pressure of the weight is not increasing but actually diminishing also." A very sufficient demonstration that steam and gravity are not correlated ”

“ A compressed elastic medium tends ever with great energy to give a spherical figure to the chamber in which it is confined. This truth is alike mathematically demonstrable, and recognized in practice by every engineer. In the case before us, the expansive power of the gaseous nucleus is such as to balance the gravitation of the shell of the planet; and this power perpetually strives to make the planet a perfect sphere. Thus the tendency of the centrifugal force to produce oblateness, is opposed not only by the force of gravity but by another force of great intensity ”

“ It is evident that if heat radiation could exercise the slightest influence upon gravitative attraction, it would be possible in many cases to interpose a screen to its action, contrary to the observed fact generalized in our fifth proposition.
We are correctly reminded that " we only know the force of gravity as between bodies such as they actually exist ;" ”

“ It is probable that some day we may be able to understand how the force of gravity appears to act instantaneously at a distance, and how all the transformable forces, gravity, light, heat, electricity, and molecular or atomic forces, are but different manifestations of one common energy. But in the meantime we know this for certain, that the law of gravity is not a local or special phenomenon, but prevails universally from the fixed stars to the atoms, from the infinitely great to the infinitely small. ”

“ It is common old gravity that had been known so long, that was perfectly familiar to Galileo, and probably to Archimedes. Gravity that regulates the motion of projectiles. Why should it only pull stones and apples? Why should it not reach as high as the moon? Why should it not be the gravitation of the sun that is the central force acting on all the planets?
Surely the secret of the universe is discovered! But, wait a bit; is it discovered? Is this force of gravity sufficient for the purpose? It must vary inversely with the square of the distance from the centre of the earth. ”

“ Whatever a priori conceptions may be indulged therefore, as to the natural fitness of a central force having the same tension at all distances, it has been definitely established by two centuries of continuous and irreversible demonstration, that gravity is not such a force. ”

“ If any other machine, such as a combination of wheels and screws, was proposed to move the Earth, the time it would require, and the space gone through by the hand that turned the machine, would be the same as before. Hence we may learn, that however boundless our Imagination and Theory may be, the actual operations of man are confined within narrow bounds; and more suited to our real wants than to our desires.
Hard to determine what Gravity is. 160. The Sun and Planets mutually attract each other: the power by which they do so we call Gravity. ”

“ However, inertia and gravitation are in every respect and by all our experience, for the most varied materials and from the lightest to the heaviest, so closely connected with each other that we may seek without concern the origin of these two effects at the same place, namely in the latent energy of the chemical atoms. Assuming that gravity is directly proportional to the latent energy, then the mass depending on temperature is only very slightly larger than the ponderable mass which is quite independent of temperature. ”

“ In its exact equality and its perfect independence of all circumstances, except mass and distance, the force of gravity stands apart from all the other forces and phenomena of nature, and has not yet been brought into any relation with them except through the general principle of the conservation of energy. Magnetic attraction, as remarked by Newton, follows very different laws, depending upon the chemical quality and molecular structure of each particular substance. ”

“ Both effects, that of flattening and of rotation, tend to diminish the weight of bodies at the equator, so that a body at the latter place weighs about 1/192 less than at the poles.
In studying the effect of the earth's gravity, the following illustration will be helpful: Imagine an open shaft a mile square extending through the earth. What would happen to a stone thrown into the shaft? At first it would have the attraction of the whole earth drawing it and continually increasing its speed downward. As it descends from the surface, the pull toward the center grows less and less. ”

“ All spaces are not equally Full. For if all spaces were equally full, then the specific gravity of the fluid which fills the region of the air, on account of the extreme density of the matter, would fall nothing short of the specific gravity of quick-silver, or gold, or any other the most dense body; and therefore, neither gold, nor any other body, could descend in air. For bodies do not descend in fluids, unless they are specifically heavier than the fluids. And if the quantity of matter in a given space, can, by any rarefaction, be diminished, what should hinder a diminution to infinity? ”

“ It is a known principle that a particle of matter cannot of itself change the direction of its motion. The particles of the ultimate medium in space must therefore move in straight lines. This deduction is surely of great importance in the inquiry as to the constitution of the physical media in space. Also in addition to this, the observed facts of gravity prove that the particles of the gravific medium move in straight lines, since no other motion than this can harmonize with the observed effects of gravity. ”

“ It is possible that the gyratory movement of the atoms are communicated to the ether and through it to the different material bodies, thereby establishing an attraction between them. The reciprocal attraction of vortices has, at the present day, been demonstrated by many experiments. . . .Gravitation displays the incomprehensible characteristic, which no other manifestation of energy possesses, of not being arrested by any obstacle. The most delicate researches have shown that no body exists which is opaque to gravitation. ”

“ Since the stone ascends 20' in consequence of its own velocity, and is pulled back 16' by gravity, it will, at the end of a second, be found at the height of 4'. If, instead of being shot up vertically, the body had been projected in any other direction, the result would have been the same; gravity would have brought the body at the end of one second 16' nearer the earth than it would have been had gravity not acted. For example, if a body had been shot vertically downwards with a velocity of 20', it would in one second have moved through a space of 36'. ”

“ We observe that under the principles of the kinetic theory no such supply is necessary, but that all the conditions requisite for gravity may be fulfilled by a medium pervading the visible universe, and which is at rest as a whole ; or the gravific medium within the bounds of the visible universe may be compared to the air within a receptacle, which is, as a whole, at rest; and therefore there is no more waste of the matter producing gravity than if mundane matter did not exist. ”

“ Evidently there exists just as little an obstacle in space to smallness of size as to any given velocity of motion, and there are reasons for supposing that gravity must propagate itself with great velocity. Precisely because the normal velocity of the atoms is great, the material concerned in producing gravity can be very limited in quantity, and notwithstanding that exert a very considerable pressure. ”

“ It is through the action of these sympathetic forces of the Infinite etheric realm that planets are born, and their volume of matter augmented.
If we pick up an object, we feel a resisting power in it which physicists call gravity; but they do not explain what gravity is. It is simply a sympathetic flow, proceeding from the molecular centres of neutrality; which flow is concordant with the earth’s neutral centre of same, seeking this medium of its affinity with a power corresponding to the character of its molecular mass. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the nature of gravity were essentially not electrodynamic, it would be possible for some deviation from the accepted laws of dynamics, owing to a motion of translation through space, to be revealed by direct astronomical observations. ”

“ The power of attraction may be divided into general attraction, which is called gravity; and into particular attraction, which is termed chemical affinity. As nothing can act where it does not exist, the power of gravity must be conceived as extending from the sun to the planets, occupying that immense space; and may therefore be considered as an ethereal fluid, though not cognizable by our senses like heat, light, and electricity.
Particular attraction, or chemical affinity, must likewise occupy the spaces between the particles of matter which they cause to approach each other. ”

“ Yet speculation often rushed in where science feared to tread. Elastic media exerting stress, fluids of variable density, transmitting pressure, streams of particles acting by impacts, impalpable ethers conveying waves, these and many other types of action have been put forward. In the i8th century, we do not find very many theories, because the tendency during that period was, for the reasons we have seen, to give over gravity to the abstract mathematicians, and to regard action at a distance as the outpost, beyond which enquiry need not be pushed. ”

“ On the mathematical side, gravity is no insoluble riddle. We have, on the one hand, astronomical observations, and thus a continual supply of exact data which confirm the famous inductions of Kepler, and so the laws of gravitational action ; while on the other, the extensive range of pendulum experiments, torsion balance experiments, common balance experiments, give a constant verification of these laws as regards small bodies near the surface of this earth. ”

“ Now we know that the inner coherence of a physical body is due to its point-relationship, that is to the gravitational force bound up with it. Indeed, cohesion increases as we pass from the gaseous, through the liquid, to the solid state of matter.
Whilst a body's cohesion is due to gravity, its spatial extendedness is, as we have seen, due to levity. If we reduce the volume of a piece of physical matter by means of pressure, we therefore release levity-forces previously bound up in it, and these, as always happens in such cases, appear in the form of free heat. ”

“ If instead of the motions of the 292planets and satellites as wholes, we consider the motions of their parts, we meet with comparatively complex illustrations. Every portion of the Earth’s substance in its daily rotation, describes a curve which is in the main a resultant of that resistance which checks its nearer approach to the centre of gravity, that momentum which would carry it off at a tangent, and those forces of gravitation and cohesion which keep it from being so carried off. ”

“ He thinks that this alone will explain why the sidereal system does not collapse toward its common center of gravity. "According to the theory of gravity I have proposed, although the ordinary law may be exact through the solar system and far beyond, there must be distances at which the condition that the excursions of the vibrating particles of the aether are large compared to the dimensions of the atoms ceases to be fulfilled. In that case the attraction changes to repulsion." ”