Newton's Views on Aether and Gravitation

L. ROSENFELD
In the Principia [1] NEWTON presented the theory of gravitation from the point of view which we nowadays call "phenomenological": he based the whole description of planetary motions on an assumed law of dynamical interaction, and deliberately renounced any a t t e m p t at accounting for this particular form of interaction between distant bodies b y some mechanism of propagation through an intervening medium. This approach was such an innovation that it was thoroughly misunderstood even b y the greatest of the contemporary physicists; HUYGENS in particular objected to it without apparently realizing that he was himself currently using the same logical procedure in his mechanical investigations, when he justified his postulates b y pointing to their empirical origin. NEWTON was at great pains to dispel the mistaken suspicion that he regarded gravitation as an intrinsic quality of matter. His first opportunity to do so was his correspondence with BENTLEY ~2], but in the final scholium of the second edition of the Principia [3] he is more explicit about the novelty of his method -and more outspoken about his failure to find in the known properties of gravitation a n y sure clue to its "cause". He makes quite clear the deep-lying reason for his dissatisfaction about mechanical explanations of gravitation: to be acceptable according to the exacting criteria of his experimental philosophy, such an explanation ought to be related in a unique way to the phenomena - - otherwise it is an "hypothesis" of the kind he does not want to "feign". The last paragraph of the scholium, then, in which he alludes to his conception of a universal aether whose multiple functions as the agency of the most varied phenomena he carefully enumerates, can only be intended to intimate that he regards the mechanical causes of these phenomena as more securely founded, or at least less hypothetical, t h a n that of gravitation. Indeed, the problem of the cause of gravity was of quite a different order of difficulty from the other processes he considered: in the latter, such as the action of gross matter upon the properties of light, one is concerned with immediate, short-range, interactions which easily fit into the generally accepted cartesian framework of mechanical explanation; the phenomena of gravitation, b y contrast, h a d been extended b y NEWTON himself to the grand scale of the universe: there was here not only a peculiar interaction between aether and matter at play, b u t a dynamical process within the aether itself had to account for the transmission of a force of unlimited range. This singular position of the gravitation problem is strikingly reflected in the evidence we have of NEWTON'S imaginative a t t e m p t s at an all-embracing description of the aether's workings: while in these successive formulations he hardly varied in the conception of the short-range :interactions between aether and matter responsible for all other effects, the mechanisms he proposed for explaining gravitation exhibit considerable and significant differences.

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In the extensive memorandum sent to the Royal Society [4] in 1675, he outlined a remarkable mechanism of kinetic character, according to which material bodies set up around them a cyclical circulation of aether which carries towards their surface the smaller material bodies it "pervades". In a letter to BOYLE [5 ] of 1679, however, purporting to acquaint the latter with the content of the memorandum, he surprisingly ends up with an entirely new "conjecture" respecting gravitation, without even alluding to his previous theory. As if carried away by his eagerness to unfold the whole vision of the world that is disclosing itself to his mind, he tells his friend that the new idea " c a m e into m y mind now as I was writing this letter". Although such spontaneity is not a usual mood with NEWTON, it is in harmony with the tone of confident friendship which marks his relations with BOYLE,and there is no reason to doubt his word; what this extraordinary circumstance reveals seems obvious: NEWTON was SO little convinced of the adequacy of his circulatory mechanism that when he was about to put it down in writing, he started thinking again about the problem and readily yielded to the alternative possibility that offered itself to his powerful imagination. In fact, when he later returns to the circulation theory in his correspondence with HALLEY [6], he calls it in so many words "one of m y guesses which I did not rely o n " [7]. Nevertheless, this very correspondence shows that he not only did not definitely discard the circulation theory, but on the contrary kept it in mind and even persisted in attaching great importance to it. The new theory summarily formulated in the letter to BOYLE, while still in the cartesian spirit, differed essentially from the previous one by being static rather than kinetic: gravitation was still conceived as the result of a pressure exerted by the aether on material bodies and tending to push them towards each other, but this pressure was now thought to result from the inhomogeneity of the aether, assumed to consist of two kinds of particles, finer and coarser ones, interacting differently with matter. It thus looks as if NEWTON was contemplating as alternative possibilities the opposite extremes of stationary circulation and static density distribution of aether particles to account for the maintenance of the force of gravity. If we now turn to his last pronouncement on the subject, which he only put forward in the form of additional queries at the end of the second English edition of the Opticks [8], as late as t 717*, we see him inclining to the static alternative, which he develops in an apparently simpler form than in the letter to BOYLE: he now operates with an aether of homogeneous composition, but whose density is assumed to be influenced by the presence of material bodies in such a way that it is lowest inside and around these bodies and increases continually at larger distances. This superficial resemblance should not mislead us to any facile conclusion, for the aether of NEWTON'S later years, such as he describes it in the Queries, is radically different from the medium bearing the same name, to which, in his youthful speculations, he assigned such a prominent role in the economy of the universe. Originally, NEWTON took for granted the existence of * Essentially similar ideas occur already in manuscript drafts which can be dated to the period of writing of the Pvincipict(t687), and recur in drafts of the finalscholium of the second edition (1713) [t0]. A general discussion of NEWTON'Sthoughts on the constitution of matter has been given by A. R. & M. B. HALL [10].

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a medium filling all space, like DESCARTES' "mati~re subtile", not for the metaphysical reasons adduced by the French philosopher, but simply as part of the general mechanical view of tile universe, which was then accepted without question. The constitution of the aether discussed in the Queries, on the other hand, is that of an elastic medium of such extremely low density that its single constituent particles must be assumed to be separated by considerable spatial extensions void of every kind of matter: the origin of this aether's elasticity then raised a problem whose solution lay beyond NEWTON'S conceptual horizon. In order to understand why the development of the aether problem took this dramatic turn, let us now look more closely at its successive phases. The memorandum of 1675 gives us a curious picture of the young NEWTON'S fiery imagination, taking at times a poetical turn, as when he evokes his vision of Nature as a great "circulatory worker" [41 ; but we also observe how he holds his fantasy in check b y his other leit-motiv, the " a n a l o g y " of Nature: in his boldest speculations he always seeks guidance in comparisons with known phenomena, arguing that Nature proceeds in all her operations according to the same few principles. The mechanism of gravitation he proposes in the memorandum was at first meant to account for the force of gravity experienced on the surface of the earth; as an afterthought E71, he pointed out that it could also be applied to the attraction of the planets by the sun: at that time he was not at all persuaded that this attraction was the only force regulating planetary motions [1 t l, and the problem of gravitation as a universal agency had not yet presented itself to his mind. He imagines that there is in the aether a component of a "sticky" nature, which is continually streaming towards the surface of the earth, where it is partly absorbed*, partly re-emitted into the surrounding space, and is thus involved in a steady circulation. The downward aether stream exerts upon the material bodies it traverses a force which NEWTON wishes to identify with gravity. To this end, he must specify the way in which the aether particles transfer momentum to those of gross matter: he assumes [t21 that the material bodies are acted upon by the aether in proportion to the "superficies of their parts", i.e. by the pressure of the aether stream, so that the radial force upon a unit volume of matter is given by the corresponding pressure gradient in the aether stream. The latter quantity is equal to the product of the local aether density and the amount of momentum which an aether particle transfers on the average per unit time to the gross matter. NEWTON takes this average force to be proportional to the radial velocity of the aether particle; in this way - - as he explains to HALLEY It2~ - - since the aether density is inversely proportional to the same velocity, the product is independent of the variation that this velocity undergoes * The summary account of NEWTON'Scirculatory mechanism given in my paper on NEWTON'S theory of gravitation [11] misses the essential part played by this absorption, and is accordingly quite inadequate. This was noticed by Dr. E. J. AITON in the course of all investigation of the controversy between HOOKE and NEWTON about the priority of the discovery of the inverse square law. I am most thankful to Dr. AITONfor calling my attention to this point and for sending me the manuscript of his forthcoming paper, which contains in particular the correct interpretation of NEWTON'S argument [1 3J.

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as a result of the interaction of the aether stream with the material bodies. In fact, on NEWTON'S assumption, every material body at the same distance from the centre of the earth experiences the same centripetal acceleration, proportional to the aether flux, and accordingly varying inversely as the square of the distance. The inverse square law is thus only established, however, in the space outside the earth, in which the total aether flux around the earth is not sensibly affected b y the bodies it traverses; but it is not expected to hold inside the earth [7], since in this region the "sticky" aether particles will be gradually absorbed by the matter and the total aether flux will decrease appreciably, in some unspecified way*. The interest of this hypothesis lies in NEWTON'S endeavour to give it quantitative precision, aiming at an understanding of the inverse square law - - albeit this result could only be achieved at the cost of much arbitrariness. This was at any rate NEWTON'S own motivation for exhuming it from the register of the Royal Society ill t686, when he felt compelled to evidence his early knowledge of the law in question against HOOKE'S priority contention. By that time, however, his view of the constitution of the aether had already undergone a radical transformation. The exact fulfilment of KEPLER'S laws throughout the whole solar system, while vindicating the universality of the simple inverse square law of gravitation, had thereby forced NEWTON to the unwelcome conclusion that since the aether did not oppose any appreciable resistance to the passage of the celestial bodies, it must be a medium of such extremely low density that its role as the agent of gravitation was in jeopardy: thus arose, paradoxically, from the very triumph of the universal law of gravitation, the acute dilemma regarding the origin of this force, which weighed so heavily on NEWTON'S mind during the rest of his life [11 ]. It was at this critical juncture, in the spring of 1687, that a gifted and enterprising young man, FATIO DE DUILLIER, arrived in London Et4]. He came from Holland, where he had been ill relation with HUYGENS,and was well acquainted with the mechanical explanation of gravity that the latter had developed a long time before [t 5], but had left unpublished. FATIO must have discussed it soon after his arrival at the Royal Society (whose meetings he attended), for on June t4, t687 he reports to HUYGE~IS [16] that some of the members told him he was too much of a Cartesian, and that the ideas set forth in NEWTON'S forthcoming book had changed the whole of physics. Still, the following year, as appears from entries in the journal of the Society [t7] for June 27 and July 4, 1688, FATIO was asked, on his accession to membership [14], to give a fuller account of I-IuYGENS' theory before the Society. This theory was indeed as cartesian in spirit as NEWTON'S circulatory hypothesis, inasmuch as it treated the aether as a continuous fluid; in fact, it was a modernization of the cartesian * A total number S of aether particles per unit time steadily streaming towards the centre of the earth produce at the distance R from the centre an aether flux F=S/4~R 2, and a local aether density F/v, if v is the radial velocity at this distance. With the assumption that the average force exerted by an aether particle on the gross matter is proportional to v, the total force on a unit volume of matter will be independent of v and proportional to the aether flux F. This again is inversely proportional to R 2 so long as the total aether flux S is sensibly constant.

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vortex idea. HUYGENS, like NEWTON, had realized the inadequacy of DESCARTES' plane vortices, and tried to replace them by spherical ones. Thus, he interpreted the force of gravity as the centripetal force which a material body immersed in such an aether vortex around the earth would experience; the quantitative identification requires an angular velocity of the aether particles about t 7 times that of the earth's rotation, corresponding to a period of t h 25 rain (as stated in the report [t7] of FATIO'S account). Clearly, HUYGENS' proposal - - which he eventually published in t690, with critical comments on the Principia [t8t - - was a thing of the past, which could not impress NEWTON'S followers. FATIO seems to have rapidly assimilated the Newtonian principles and nothing was more natural for him than to a t t e m p t a new mechanical explanation of gravitation, in harmony with the inferences about the aether's properties that NEWTON had drawn from his analysis of the planetary motions. His starting point is a kinetic conception of the aether's constitution and action upon matter - - as radical indeed as the condition of extremely low density calls for: he visualized the aether as a medium consisting of particles in swift random motion, and so rare that the mutual collisions of these particles m a y be ignored. Could the impacts of these aether particles on a pair of material bodies immersed in them give rise to a net motion of these bodies towards each other ? If so, this apparent attraction would indeed obey the inverse square law. FATIO realized that no such motion could be produced b y perfectly elastic collisions between the particles of aether and matter. On the other hand, inelasticity introduces secular alterations of the motions of the system, and it is a moot point whether these can be kept down sufficiently not to conflict with the observed stability of the planetary motions. FATIO'S progress was held up b y this difficulty for more than two years, until he thought he could prove t h a t the secular effect of inelastic collisions could be reduced as much as desired b y decreasing the density of the aether particles and, if need be, increasing their velocity. On February 24, t689/90, he announces briefly to NEWTON [t9] t h a t his theory is now "clear of objections": from which one m a y infer t h a t he had previously discussed it verbally with him. On the same day, he writes to HUYGENS [20~ a letter containing a detailed account of his thoughts, and two days later, he reads this letter at a meeting of the Royal Society [2t]. Moreover, he composes a prolix essay [t4] after the fashion of the time, in which he sets down once more the whole argument at great length; on March t9, t690, this essay is in the hands of HALLEY and NEWTON [221 . HUYGENS saw at once that FATIO'S way of dealing with the consequences of inelastic collisions was a paralogism, and in his reply [23] of March 21, t690 (n.s.), he pointed out that nothing short of actual absorption of aether particles b y the material bodies could produce the expected attraction between them. FATIO presented [24] an ineffectual defense, but not receiving any further reply f r o m HUYGENS, he fondly imagined that the latter had yielded*, and his own belief in the soundness of his theory remained unshaken. In fact, as appears from his marginal annotations to FAT!O'S two letters, as well as from later occasional
* H e s a y s so in a l e t t e r of M a r c h 30, t694 w r i t t e n t o t h e B r a u n s c h w e i g r e s i d e n t in L o n d o n a n d i n t e n d e d for LEIBNIZ [25], a n d also in a l a t e r m e m o r a n d u m E22~. 3 Arch.Hist. Exact Sci., Vol.6

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utterances* HUYGENS thought that the necessity of assuming a continual absorption of aether b y the material bodies reduced the whole theory to an absurdity. As to NEWTON, we gather from a manuscript E26], as well as from FATIO'S reports [25, 22], that he looked more favourably on the latter's theory. He seemed to regard it as a possible mechanical explanation of gravity - - indeed he even says: the only possible one, but not with great conviction, for we know from FATIO'S own testimony that he often seemed to incline, as an alternative, to the opinion " t h a t Gravity had its Foundation only in the arbitrary Will of God [22~ ". It is understandable that NEWTON would not feel as strongly as I-IUYGENS the inconvenience of secular perturbations in the solar system; in contrast to HUYGENS and LEIBNIZ, he never thought that the solar system could subsist indefinitely by itself. His own circulatory mechanism was also essentially dependent on some absorption of aether by matter, and (as we m a y infer from FLAMSTEED'S testimony [30]) as late as t685 he was still contemplating the possibility of a slowing down of planetary motions as the result of an increase in mass due to accretion of aetherial matter; he was then in doubt about a suspected slowing down of Saturn's motion, which seemed to follow from tables drawn up b y HALLEY [301 and was too large to be explained as a perturbation due to the attraction of Jupiter [31]. Even after he had convinced himself, in the course of writing the Principia [tt], that gravitation was the only force governing the solar system, he remained persuaded that in any case the perturbations arising from the mutual attraction of the planets would in the long run upset its structure E32~. The FATIO episode is instructive inasmuch as it evidences the persistence of kinetic conceptions in NEWTON'S mind as offering at least a possible basis for a mechanical theory of gravitation. There is no telling when or why he gave up this prospect and turned again to the static type of mechanism of which he had sketched out an improvised variant in his letter to BOYLE. It is first in the new English edition of the Opticks [8] (of which two issues were printed in t 717 and 17t8) that he resolved to make public, in some additional queries **, his last views about the aether and its possible function as the agent of gravitation; these views, however, harmonize with those expressed in the other queries, which date from the first latin edition [32] of 1706. We m a y therefore surmise that NEWTON'S renewed interest in optics, which led him to the elaboration of his curious theory of the fits of easy reflexion and easy transmission, can have been instrumental * In a letter of December 29, 1692 (n.s.) to the Marquis DE L'I-IosPITAL[27] and twice [28] in reply to enquiries which LxIBNIZ directed to him [29] after receiving FATIo's letter mentioned in the preceding footnote. **The first edition of the oplichs (t704) contained only queries 1--16, which were kept (with some additions) in all the following editions. In the latin edition [32] of t 706, a number of new queries appear, there numbered 17--23: they coincide in all essentials with the queries numbered 2 5 - 31 in all later editions, and they contain a detailed discussion of the aether's role in optical and chemical phenomena, as well as (in the last query) physical and theological considerations about the constitution of the universe. New queries, numbered t 7--24, were finally inserted in the second English edition of 17t 7--t 8 and the later ones.

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in orienting his thoughts towards the manifestations of the elasticity of the aether, which he was now considering to be one of its essential attributes. In order to account for the phenomena of thin plates, NEWTON had indeed seen the necessity of introducing an element of periodicity in the propagation of light: he imagined that the light corpuscles could excite in the aether waves of definite periods, which would overtake them and put them in fits of easy reflexion or easy transmission. This mechanism fixes a lower limit to the value of the ratio of elasticity to density of the aetherial medium, which is equal to the square of the velocity of propagation of waves in it; this ratio must be at least of the order of t012 times the corresponding ratio for air. On the other hand, the density of the aether must be small enough to make its resistance to the motion of matter through it negligible; if we take it 106 times rarer than air, its resistance will be about t 09 times less than that of water. Its elasticity would then have to be at least 10 s times larger than that of air. NEWTON applies here with wonted virtuosity his familiar method of extrapolating from known properties of matter to a plausible construction of a hypothetical medium satisfying the imposed requirements. If he now wanted to fit gravitation into the picture, he had to introduce some inhomogeneity in the distribution of the aether with respect to the material bodies; and he saw that he would achieve his purpose b y assuming that the presence of matter produces in the aether a gradient of density, which in its turn maintains the pressure gradient required to bring about the phenomena of gravitation. It could not escape him, however, that his new aether model, in spite of its apparent simplicity, was much nearer " t h e arbitrary will of G o d " than those he had previously devised on the analogy of continuous fluids - - an analogy he now firmly rejected (query 28). For he was now faced with the question of how to account in mechanical terms for the elasticity of the aether. In the Principia El 1, he had discussed - - as a " m a t h e m a t i c a l " possibility - - a static model of fluids in which a pressure is maintained by a short-range repulsion between the constituent particles of the fluid. This is proposition X X I I I of book II, in which he shows, b y a simple argument of proportionality, that a repulsive force between nearest neighbours varying as the - - n - t h power of their distance gives rise to a pressure proportional to the power (n + 2 ) of the density. He does suggest (query 2t) that such a mutual repulsion between the particles of the aether m a y be the cause of its elasticity; but this cannot be a mechanical cause, for the analogy with ordinary fluids here breaks down on an essential difficulty: the necessity of assuming that the aether particles are on the average separated from each other, without any possibility of material communication between them. In the famous query 31 (which was published in t 706, antidating b y 7 years the publication of the final scholium added to the Principia) NEWTO~ raises the problem of action at a distance in full generality: gravitation is only one of the interactions between material particles which can be described in this way; electricity and magnetism offer other examples, and chemical processes give evidence of shorter-range forces of a similar type. Likewise, optical phenomen a point to an action of matter upon light corpuscles which is not one of immediate contact. How such actions are transmitted is a question which NEWTON professes not to be concerned with; they " m a y be perform'd b y impulse, or b y some
3*

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o t h e r m e a n s u n k n o w n to m e " . J u s t as in the Princ@ia, he is anxious s h a r p l y to dissociate his p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l a p p r o a c h from t h e v e x e d p r o b l e m of t h e causes, fully conscious as he is of t h e i m m e n s e progress this m e t h o d r e p r e s e n t s over t h e c a r t e s i a n philosophy. Nevertheless, he n e v e r gave u p his d r e a m of a u n i v e r s a l a e t h e r p r o v i d i n g t h e m e d i u m t h r o u g h which an o m n i p r e s e n t G o d was c o n t i n u a l l y a c t i n g u p o n his c r e a t i o n ; b u t he h a d to confess t h a t the o n l y workings of t h e a e t h e r he could u n d e r s t a n d were the t r a n s m i s s i o n of s h o r t - r a n g e i n t e r a c t i o n s inside t h e m a t e r i a l bodies; these he felt confident could be a t t r i b u t e d to " a v e r y s u b t l e spirit p e r v a d i n g t h e gross bodies a n d l y i n g h i d d e n in t h e m " (" s p i r i t u q u o d a m subtilissimo c o r p o r a crassa p e r v a d e n t e , & in iisdem l a t e n t e " [3]): for t h a t p a r t of t h e a e t h e r was a c t i n g u p o n sufficiently condensed m a t t e r to m a k e its b e h a v i o u r conceivable in m e c h a n i c a l terms, - - in c o n t r a s t to t h a t of the r a r e m e d i u m of i n t e r p l a n e t a r y space. T h e n o b l e s t function of t h e aether, t h e r e g u l a t i o n of t h e h e a v e n l y motions, e l u d e d h i m to the last. Literature* 1. NEWTON, I., Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, first edition 1687. 2. The correspondence of ISAAC NEWTON, (further quoted as "Correspondence"), vol. 3: letter 399 of J a n u a r y 17, 1692/93, esp. p. 240. 3. NEWTON, I., Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, second edition 17t 3: Scholium generale. 4. Correspondence, vol. 1 : letter 146 to OLDENBURG of December 7, 1675, esp. p. 366. 5. Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 233 of F e b r u a r y 28, 1678/79, esp. p. 295. 6. Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 288 of June 20, t686 and letter 29t of July 27, 1686. 7. Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 288, p. 440. 8. NEWTON, I., Opticks, second edition 1717--18; new queries numbered 17--24. 9. HALL, A. R. & M. B., Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton (Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 321--333, 349--359. 10. Ibid., p. 183--213. 11. ROSENFELD, L., Newton and the law of gravitation (Archive for History of E x a c t Sciences 2, 365 (1965). 12. Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 291, p. 447. t3. AITON, E. J., Newton's Aether Stream Hypothesis and the Inverse Square Law of Gravitation (Annals of Science). 14. GAGNEBIN, B., De la cause de la pesanteur, m6moire de Nicolas F a t i o de Duillier (Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 6, 105 (t949)) (further quoted as " GAGNEBIN"). t 5. (Euvres completes de C. HUYGENS (further quoted as "CEuvres"), vol. 19, p. 619; vol. 2t, p. 379. 16. (Euvres, vol. 9, P. 167 (also Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 307, and GAGNEBIN, p. t09). 17. GAGNEBIN, p. 114--115 (also Correspondence, vol. 3: letter 352, note (t), p. 69, where the second entry, however, is wrongly interpreted as referring to the exposition of FATIO'S own theory). 18. (Euvres, vol. 21, p. 429. 19. Correspondence, vol. 3: letter 463, p. 390. 20. (Euvres, vol. 9, P. 381. 21. GAGNEBIN, p. t t 5 - - 1 t 6.
22. GAGNEBIN, p. t 1 6 - - 1 1 7 .

23. GAGNEBIN, p. 154--158 (also, b u t incomplete, (Euvres, vol. 9, P. 391). * All dates are quoted in the Julian calendar, except those marked " ( n . s . ) " (new style).

Newton on Aether and Gravitation 24. 25/ 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

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(Euvres, vol. 9, P. 407 (letter to HUYGENS of April 1t, 1690). (Euvres, vol. 10, p. 608 (also Correspondence, vol. 3: letter 440). Loc. cir. in note 9, P. 3t3. (Euvres, vol. 10, p. 354. (Euvres, vol. t0, p. 613 (letter to LEIBNIZ of M a y 29, 1694 (n.s.)) and p. 669 (letter to LEIBNIZ of August 24, t694 (n.s.)). (Euvres, vol. 10, p. 603 (letter to HUYGENS of April 26, t694 (n.s.)) ~nd p. 644 (letter to HUYGENS of June 22, 1694 (n.s.)). Correspondence, vol. 2, note (4) to letter 275, p. 4t2. Correspondence, vol. 2: letter 276 of J a n u a r y t2, 1684/85 to FLAMSTEED. NEWTON, I., Optice (translated b y S. CLARKE) t706, quaestio 23 ( = q u e r y 31 in later editions); see also ROBII~E% A., (ed.), Correspondance Leibniz-Clarke (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1957). NORDITA Copenhagen (Received March 19, 1969)