Zero gravity

“ With respect, also, to the assumption made above, of constant gravitation with increasing altitude, the variation in the value of gravity within the height limits in which the gas operates is so slight, that the energy of the expanding substance is completely worked down long before the variation appreciably affects the estimated altitude of absolute zero. ”

“ Our inability to differentiate between a field of inertial forces generated by acceleration and one of gravitation generated by matter is due solely to a miraculous coincidence, that of the equality of the two masses. Again, when, in the elevator falling in the earth’s gravitational field, we experience no feeling of weight, it is not that the gravitational field has vanished; it is solely that the field of gravity has been counteracted by an equal and opposite field of inertia generated by the elevator’s accelerated motion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The principle of the conservation of force would lead us to assume that when A and B attract each other less because of increasing distance, then some other exertion of power, either within or without them, is proportionately growing up. And again that when their distance is diminished, as from 10 to 1, the power of attraction, now increased a hundred-fold, has been produced out of some other form of power which has been equivalently reduced." [9] Were gravity merely a dynamic energy, generated in time and space by an anterior and exterior force, the inference would undoubtedly be correct. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Natural gravity of natural matter is, luckily, not selective. It goes in all directions. But this artificial gravity is controlled so that it does not spread, and the result is that the mass-attraction of a mass of matter does not fall off as the inverse square of the distance, but like the ray from the parallel beam spotlight, continues undiminished. ”

“ The unresisted force of gravitation would, in far less than an eternity, draw all things together toward the center of gravity of the universe. We should not have separate stars, and suns, and planets, and moons, revolving in orderly orbits, but one vast mass of matter, in which all motion had long since ceased. There must be some power of resistance to gravitation, and nicely balanced against it, a centrifugal force—no matter whether you call it heat, light, or electricity, or by any other name—from which balance of power the movements of the universe are regulated. ”

“ On the contrary, the size and weight of every sun and star that floats in the broad expanse of ether would under the law of gravity tend to bring about just such a universal catastrophe.
If the boasted law of gravitation prevailed to-day, or ever did prevail, such would be the disastrous results. The law of gravitation tends to aggregate all bodies into one. If the universe was under the dominion of gravity there would be but one vast globe in all the universe, and if there was a man on it there would be but one enormous giant. Newton's law of gravitation is "large bodies attract small ones." ”

“ 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, 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. ”

“ Gravity is nothing more than a concordant attractive sympathetic stream flowing towards the neutral centre of the earth. This force is inherent in all visible and invisible aggregated forms of matter, from the very birth of a planet, around whose centre the molecules cluster by the sympathetic affinity which is thus induced. If these conditions had always maintained a neutral position in etheric space, no planet would ever have been evolved. These conditions have been fixed by the Infinite. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The banishment of the idea of the atom as a minute, incompressible, undecomposable sphere takes away the theoretical limit of compressibility, and by so doing cuts away the groundwork for assigning definite limits even to the resources of gravity, since, as already indicated, unlimited condensation gives theoretically unlimited transformation of the potential energy of gravity. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the planet's surface, the total energy of an infinitesimally small portion of the gaseous mass is proportional to that mass. This amount of energy is, however, all that is available for transformation against gravitation in the ascent. But at the same time, the gravitative force on the particle, that force which resists its upward movement, is proportionately small corresponding to the small mass, so that the particle will in reality require to rise to the same altitude of 31 miles in order to completely transform its energy and attain absolute zero of temperature. ”

“ Their own world was probably even larger—they were forced to wear pressure suits even on that large world, and could jump all over, you said. On so huge a sphere as their native world seems to be, the gravity would be so intense as to distort space. Geometry, such as yours seems to be, and such as ours was, could never be developed, for you assume the existence of a straight line, and of an absolute plane surface. These things cannot exist in space, but on small worlds, far from the central sun's mass, the conditions approach that without sufficient discrepency to make the error obvious. ”

“ The actual strain is in space. It is space that takes the strain, but in normal cases, unless the masses are very large, no considerable acceleration is produced over any great distance. That law operates in the case of the pulled body; it pulls the gravitational field as a normal field, the inverse-square law applying.
"But on the other hand, the gravity-beam pulls with a constant force.
"It might be likened to the light-pressure effects of a spotlight and a star. The spotlight would push the sun with a force that was constant ”

“ We are certain that the Planets disturb one another’s motions by it, and that it decreases according to the squares of the distances of the Sun and Planets; as light, which is known to be material, likewise does. Hence Gravity should seem to arise from the agency of some subtile matter pressing towards the Sun and Planets, and acting, like all mechanical causes, by contact. ”

“ 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 ;" ”

“ All we require to admit is that the mean length of path of the particles of the medium is at least as great as the very limited range through which gravity has been observed to act ; or, in order to explain all the observed facts, it is sufficient to admit that the universe is immersed in a gas (or medium constituted according to the kinetic theory) the mean length of path of whose particles is so adjusted as to cause the minor or secondary portions of the universe to gravitate towards each other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Linear-gravity response is a quantitative measure of nonspirit energy. All mass—organized energy—is subject to this grasp except as motion and mind act upon it. Linear gravity is the short-range cohesive force of the macrocosmos somewhat as the forces of intra-atomic cohesion are the short-range forces of the microcosmos. Physical materialized energy, organized as so-called matter, cannot traverse space without affecting linear-gravity response. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The great doctrine of gravitation and attraction, the substratum of the Newtonian philosophy, is amply verified by numerous observations and experiments. Whether that which constitutes the principle of gravity be, in itself, an incorporeal or spiritual substance, or a materia subtilis, some very subtile kind of ethereal fluid, is a question which does not at all affect the actual existence of such a power. ”