Abstract
MR. ORSON PRATT'S work is not a text-book for students, but an application of dynamical principles to the system of the Universe. “The aim of the author is to vindicate the UNIVERSALITY of the law (i.e., of gravitation); to rescueit from the environed limits sought to be thrown around it, and to give it that unlimited freedom of action which the distinguished name ‘UNIVERSAL’ so appropriately and definitely imports.” Mr. Pratt states that astronomical science needs a theory which will answer as far as possible nine questions, which he propounds; the second is, “Why do planetary bodies rotate upon their respective axes? Why do they rotate from west to east, instead of the contrary direction? Is there any law governing their diurnal periods?” The ninth, “Will cometary orbits ever be converted into those of a planetary form?” “Unaided and alone, he launches his humble barque upon this great unexplored ocean, with a compass of his own invention.” The discussion occupies thirteen chapters, and his investigations result “in the development of the following beautiful law: The cube roots of the densities of the planets are as the square roots of their periods of rotation.” Without making any long comments of our own we can say that Mr. Pratt's book gives evidence of much hard work and, it may be, of ingenious speculation, and we quote as appropriate to the work before us the following remarks of Prof. Newcomb (“Popular Astronomy,” p. 233): “It is true that many ingenious people employ themselves from time to time in working out numerical relations between the distances of the planets, their masses, their times of rotation, and so on, and will probably continue to do so; because the number of such relations which can be made to come somewhere near the exact numbers is very great. This, however, does not indicate any law of nature.”
Key to the Universe; or, a New Theory of its Mechanism Founded upon a (1) Continuous Orbital Propulsion, arising from the Velocity of Gravity and its Consequent Aberrations; (2) Resisting Ethereal Medium of Variable Density, with Mathematical Demonstrations and Tables.
By Orson Pratt. Second Edition. (Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, 1879.)
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Key to the Universe; or, a New Theory of its Mechanism Founded upon a (1) Continuous Orbital Propulsion, arising from the Velocity of Gravity and its Consequent Aberrations; (2) Resisting Ethereal Medium of Variable Density, with Mathematical Demonstrations and Tables . Nature 22, 290 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022290a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022290a0