The Project Gutenberg eBook, Aether and Gravitation, by William George
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Title: Aether and Gravitation

Author: William George Hooper

Release Date: February 22, 2008 [eBook #24667]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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AETHER AND GRAVITATION

by

WILLIAM GEORGE HOOPER, F.S.S.

[Illustration]

London
Chapman and Hall, Ltd.
1903

INTRODUCTORY NOTES

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 uni