The General Principle of Relativity in Its Philosophical and Historical Aspect (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI LEIBNIZ AND THE THEORY THAT SPACE IS THE ORDER OF COEXISTENCES The effect of Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation was to reinstate the old theory of atoms and the void in the scientific conception of nature-philosophy. Newton could offer no explanation of gravitation, but he definitely established the fact. There actually is an influence or force in masses, whatever their nature, which draws them out of their path, whatever its direction, and whatever the velocity of their movement in it, and this force is proportional to the distances of the masses. But though it restored the old concept of atoms and the void it seemed in doing so to supply just that principle, ignorance of which had constituted the gravest defect in the ancient theory. Instead of the purely fanciful theory of the clinamen proposed ad hoc by Epicurus, we now have a principle of attraction which DISPROOF OF THE VORTEX 97 however mysterious, can be formulated as an invariable law, and tested by actual experiment. It lent itself to theological interpretation also, for in giving matter weight God was endowing the creation with the principle of its order and arrangement. The success of the new physical discovery in upsetting the mechanical theory of the vortices was complete. The vortex movement is inconsistent with the gravitation phenomenon in two distinct particulars. The vortex will explain gravitation at the equator, for there the centrifugal line of force is at right angles to the axis and passes through the centre, but if the revolution of the sphere round its axis is the cause of this force, then nowhere else but at the equator should the falling body be directed to the centre, and also weight if it be centripetal force should decrease to zero at the poles. The vort...