Contents
Two - BACKGROUND
All things are hidden, obscure, and debatable
if the cause of the phenomena be unkown,
but everything is clear if this cause be known.
Louis PasteurThis little book explains some things I thought about initially in 1965 while in a library at Deols Air Base near Chateauroux, France. Through the years I have checked it against the latest discoveries and theories and it still seems to be valid. To lead up to it, one must know a little bit about early physics and some of the mental giants who discovered its laws.
I have discovered that people in the far distant past also seem to have arrived at this theory I once thought was my own, so I no longer feel comfortable in claiming it as mine alone. Also, a few years after I resigned my commission, Mart Gibson and I met by accident at a party in New England. He was very interested in the theory, and what it has become today is a synthesis resulting from our working together even though we are on opposite sides of this continent.
The theory's links to the past are through obscure and brief references, most of which precede the middle ages, and it is possible that no one really understood the knowledge of the ancient peoples except the ancient peoples themselves. My recent discovery of what they seem to have known means that, at least a part of their understanding of the nature and creation of the universe, might now be brought forward.
There have been many great men who have contributed to our present knowledge of the laws of physics and it would be necessary to write several volumes to describe the work of all of them. For the purposes of this book, only a few will be mentioned, and the first one whose work must be known for this volume to be understood, is Simon Stevinus.
Simon Stevin, known as Stevinus, was born in Bruges, Belgium, in 1548. He became a civil and military engineer with a strong spirit of independence. Although he was involved with a wide range of scientific work, his work with the inclined plane led to theorems that were just short of our modern use of the parallelogram of forces, and subsequently led to it.
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, of noble parents. His father was a student of music and the mathematical theory of music. Because of Galileo's obvious talent, his father was determined that he become a physician, and Galileo was enrolled at the University of Pisa. However, Galileo became interested in mathematics and neglected his medical studies. Subsequently, he left without a degree.
While at the university, Galileo had acquired a reputation in the sciences, and was appointed as a teacher of mathematics there, where he stayed for three years. During this three year period, he discovered the laws of falling bodies. The discovery of these laws, and his later discoveries, led eventually to the science of dynamics.
Galileo developed the theorems that we use today in mathematics, having to do with gravitation. It should be understood that Newton was NOT the one who discovered gravity; he merely gave it a name. Very probably, the first one to discover gravity was the first animal that tried to stand up on land, and the first one to discover the laws of falling bodies (even though he did not put them in mathematical form), was the first one who fell off a cliff.
Rene Descartes was born in La Haye, France, on March 31, 1596. His family was wealthy and socially prominent which, as seems to be the usual case, contributed much to his being able to receive a high quality education. His chief interest seems to have been mathematics, and later in life he spent much time in seclusion so that he could devote time to his studies. During his life, he was involved in military service, the study of philosophy, and the laws of motion. He was particularly interested in the debate about whether the "quantity of motion" was determined by the mass of an object times velocity, or by its mass times the square of velocity.
Although he has been faulted by later scientist/mathematicians for some of his views, it seems clear to me that he was one of the first to realize that motion (what we call energy and momentum) is conserved. In other words, it is neither created nor destroyed.
Christian Huygens was born on April 14, 1629. He received his first instruction in mathematics and mechanics from his father, Constantine Huygens, a well educated man of wealth and position. He entered the University of Leyden when he was sixteen, studied law and mathematics there and at Breda, and published several inportant papers on the latter subject. He built and improved telescopes to the extent of using one to discover a satellite of Saturn.
Huygens was invited to Paris by Louis XIV in 1665 to join his newly founded Academy. Subsequently, Huygens invented the pendulum controlled clock, announcing this device in 1657. In 1681, he returned to Holland, continuing his study of science and publishing his works. There he died on June 8, 1695.
Among his many important contributions to science were works on centrifugal force and the pendulum. However, the most noted of his papers was his treatise on light, published in 1678, laying the foundation of undulatory wave theory.
Sir Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, on December 25, 1642. His father, also named Isaac, was a farmer who died a few months before Sir Isaac was born. His father was the owner of the manor of Woolsthorpe, and although it was small as compared to most manors, it was a home which Sir Isaac received as part of his inheritance when he reached majority. This allowed a certain measure of independence for Sir Isaac without the burden of renting or saving for the day he might purchase a home as most of us are obliged to do today. This fact, coupled with his excellent education at Cambridge, led to his being able to develop his genius with fewer encumbrances than most people have.
When Sir Isaac was three years old, his mother remarried and left him in the care of his grandmother. He attended village schools until the age of eleven and was then sent to grammar school at Grantham where he distinguished himself. At age 14, he was removed from school to work on his mother's farm, but proved to be unsuited for farming. His schoolmaster advised that he attend college, and he was enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge University, at the age of seventeen. His tutor at Cambridge was Doctor Isaac Barrow who was known for his prowess in mathematics.
Before his graduation at the age of twenty-two, he was already doing original work, and in this time and shortly after, while he was at home in Woolsthorpe during a plague, he made a number of mathematical discoveries (one of which was shared by Barrow). After that his life was a series of accomplishments which included work in celestial mechanics that became the basis for much of modern physics. He was appointed Warden of the Mint and succeeded in organizing and following through with the reformation of the coinage. His work in mathematics, optics, and celestial mechanics is well known today. However, he was also a student of mythology, a theologian, philosopher, and astrologer among other things. He is one of the discoverers (inventors) of differential calculus which he called fluxional calculus. Leibnitz made the same discovery at about the same time in Germany and called it differential calculus. At the time, England claimed that Newton had discovered it and Germany claimed that Leibnitz had discovered it. Today, both men are credited with its discovery.
[Real astrology is the father of astronomy and one of the most ancient of sciences. At one time, it included what was then known of what we call astronomy, astrophysics, celestial mechanics, and like sciences. Today, we think of it as merely a study of how the nearer celestial bodies influence us.
Famous astrologers of the past have been recognized for their contributions to today's accepted sciences, and the fact that they were astrologers has been swept under the rug. Famous astrologers of the past include Hippocrates, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and many others. The late John W. Campbell who was the editor of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine for many years championed real astrology as a legitimate science. In India and the Far East it is still used very successfully as a science.
Of course, the "astrology" found in most newspapers and pulp magazines today is not the astrology of old Sumer, Babylonia, or Egypt. Nor is it the astrology of current-day India and the Far East. Newton would have considered it to be less enlightening than Chinese fortune cookies.]Newton's definitions in his English, shortened slightly, follow:
1. Matter (what we call mass) is proportional to weight.
2. The quantity of motion arises from velocity and the quantity of the matter with that velocity. The motion of the whole is the sum of the motions of the parts (Today, we call this momentum. Momentum = mass times velocity or p=mv).
3. Matter has a quality of vis insita (inertia) which is proportional to its mass. This quality manifests only when a force acts upon a quantity of matter, causing the quantity of matter to resist. It is the quality of inactivity. Ordinarily, this power of resisting is ascribed to a body at rest. However, motion is relative, and a body that is in motion may as well be considered a body at rest and a body at rest may also be considered to be in motion, according to one's reference point, so that a body said to be in motion may resist any force that attempts to change its motion.
4. An impressed force is action exerted upon a body, in order to change its state, either of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a line. This force consists of the action only and remains no longer in the body when the action is over, for a body maintains every new state that it acquires, by its inertia only.
5. A centripetal force is that in which bodies are drawn or impelled, or in any way tend, toward a point as to a center (when one uses a sling to throw a stone, one is holding the stone as it swings around by means of centripetal force).
6. The absolute quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the efficacy of the cause which propagates from the center (the force exerted by the thongs of the sling to hold the stone in its course around the slinger's hand is equal and proportional to the force exerted by the stone as it moves about the hand). Or, in other words, centrifugal force and centripetal force oppose one another and are equal when relating to the same body or bodies.
7. The accelerative quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the velocity which it generates in a given time (acceleration = velocity divided by time).
8. The motive quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of same, proportional to the motion which it generates in a given time.
Thus the weight is greater in a greater body, less in a lesser body; and in the same body, it is greater near to the earth, and less at remoter distances. This sort of quantity is the centripetency, or propension of the whole body towards the center, or, as I may say, its weight; and is always known by the quantity of an equal and contrary force just sufficient to hinder the descent of the body (this relates to way the moon orbits the earth).
Newton's Scholium (explanatory notes) shortened and paraphrased follows:
1. Absolute, true, and mathematical time flows equably without regard to anything external and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time is some sensible and external measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year (In other words, we use motion to measure time; a year is the time it takes for the earth to move around the sun, a month is a number of times the earth rotates relative to the sun, etc.).
2. Absolute space without regard to anything external, remains similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of absolute space which our senses determine by its position to bodies; and which is commonly taken for immovable space; such as celestial space which is determined relative to the earth. Absolute space and relative space are the same in figure and magitude, but they do not remain always numerically the same. For if the earth, for instance, moves, a space of our air, which relatively and in respect of the earth remains the same, will at one time be one part of the absolute space into which the air passes; another time it will be another part of the same, and so, absolutely understood, it will be perpetually mutable (likely to change).
3. Place is part of space which a body takes up, and is according to the space, either absolute or relative. I say, a part of space; not the situation or the external surface of the body. For the places of equal solids are always equal; but their exteriors are often unequal due to their dissimilar shapes. Positions properly have no quantity, nor are they so much the places themselves, as the qualities of the places. The motion of the whole is the same thing as the motion of the sum of the parts; that is movement of the whole from its place is the same thing as the movement of the sum of the parts from their places; and therefore, the place of the whole is the same thing as the sum of the places of the parts, and for that reason, it (the place) is internal, and in the whole body.
4. Absolute motion is the movement of a body from one absolute place to another; and relative motion, the movement from one relative place to another. Thus in a ship under sail, the relative place of a body is the part of the ship which the body possesses; or that part of its cavity which the body fills, and which therefore moves together with the ship: and relative rest is the continuance of the body in the same part of the ship, or of its cavity. But real, absolute rest, is the continuance of the body in the same part of that immovable space, in which the ship itself, its cavity, all it contains, is moved. Wherefore, if the earth is really at rest, the body, which relatively rests in the ship, will really and absolutely move with the same velocity which the ship has on earth. But if the earth also moves, the true and absolute motion of the body will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space, and partly from the relative motions as well of the ship on the earth, as of the body in the ship; and from these relative motions will arise the relative motion of the body on the earth. As if that part of the earth, where the ship is, was truly moved toward the east, with a velocity of 10010 parts; while the ship itself, with a fresh gale, and full sails, is carried toward the west, with a velocity expressed by 10 of those parts; but a sailor walks in the ship towards the east, with one part of the said velocity; then the sailor will be moved truly in immovable space towards the east, with a velocity of 10001 parts, and relatively on the earth towards the west, with a velocity of 9 of these parts.
Newton's Laws of Motion shortened and paraphrased follows:
1. Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces that impress thereon.
[This is a law that is fundamental in everything in this universe from traditions to physical objects when the law is paraphrased to say: Everything continues as it is unless something attempts to change it.]
2. The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the right line in which that force is impressed.
If any force generates a motion, a double force will generate double the motion, a triple force triple the motion, whether that force be impressed altogether and at once, or gradually and successively. And this motion (being always directed the same way with the generating force), if the body moved before, is added to or subducted from the former motion, according as they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other; or obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a motion compounded from the determination of both.
3. To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. If a horse draws a stone tied by a rope, the horse (if I may say so) will be equally drawn back towards the stone: for the distended rope, by the same endeavor to relax or unbend itself, will draw the horse as much towards the stone, as it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct the progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the contrary part. The changes made by these actions are equal, not in the velocities but in the motions of bodies; that is to say, if the bodies are hindered by any other impediments. For, because the motions are equally changed, the changes of the velocities made towards contrary parts are reciprocally proportional to the bodies. This law also takes place in attractions.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in Leipzig, Germany, on June 21, 1646. He studied philosophy and law at the University of Leipzig, and attained his doctorate at the University of Altdorf in 1666. He became involved in philosophy and writing, became acquainted with distinguished scientists when in Paris, and in this period invented differential calculus. In the course of his research he corrected some errors made by Descartes on the laws of motion.
This is the assumed name of Jean le Rond, who was born on either November 16 or 17, 1717. His mother left him on the portico of the church of St. Jean le Rond in Paris, France. He was placed with the family whose name he took. He was the natural son of Chevalier Destouches and Madame de Tincen. His father contributed secretly to his support and saw to his education at the College Mazarin, where he excelled in mathematics, physics, and astronomy.
During his life he accomplished many things and received many honors which are almost too numerous to mention here, was not interested in wealth so much as knowledge, and is known as one of the greatest geometricians of his century, although his accomplishments in literature and philosophy were also great. He contributed to integral calculus (this is the opposite process from differential or fluxional calculus and came about as a natural result of these), mechanics, and other disciplines as well, and was elected to the Academy of Sciences and to the French Academy.
Here, I wish to mention what he had to say about the "quantity of motion" which till his time was still a great subject of debate. In his words from his Traite de Dynamique published in 1743, "For thirty years mathematicians have been divided in opinion as to whether the force of a body in motion is proportional to the product of the mass by [times] the velocity, or the product of the mass by [times] the square of the velocity." To make a long story short, d'Alembert clarified the issue to a point that no further dispute was necessary, defining the problem and its solution in so clear and simple fashion that in even the most dense of mathematicians could understand it.
Thomas Young was born on June 13, 1773, at Milverton in Somersetshire, England. He was a student of many languages, including Hebrew, and mathematics. When his uncle died in 1797, he was left with funds to allow himself time to study physics. He discovered the interference of light, becoming what one might call the father of interferometry. He also formulated the correct theory for color vision. He invented the term energy, applying it to what everyone else had been calling the "quantity of motion," and using interference, he revived Huygens' undulatory (wave) theory of light. In his work, he showed that energy is proportional to mass times the square of velocity.
Today, for most of our calculations, we use the following definitions and laws of motion.
1. There are three basics for movement in this universe: distance, time, and motion. Velocity is a measure of motion. If we call distance d, time t, and velocity v, then v = d/t. Velocity equals distance moved divided by the time it takes for the movement. And t = d/v, which is how we measure time; the movement of earth about the sun gives the year, the movement of the the moon about the earth gives us the month, the movement of the earth about its axis relative to the sun gives us the day, etc.
2. Acceleration we may call a, and is equal to v/t, a = v/t = d/t/t. Acceleration equals distance divided by time squared. Gravity, called g, seems to be a form of acceleration and is measured in the same way, g = d/t/t.
3. Mass is proportional to weight. To be precise, it is weight divided by the acceleration we call gravity (approximately 32 feet per second squared).
4. Momentum is the product of mass and velocity, and it is conserved. Energy is the product of half of the mass and velocity squared, and it is also conserved. This means that a body in motion has a momentum of its mass multiplied by its velocity, and an energy of half its mass multiplied by its velocity squared. If it strikes another object in what is called an inelastic collision, after the collision the sum of the momenta of the two objects will be equal to the momentum of the original object before the collision, conserving the original momentum. If the original object is stopped abruptly, it releases energy that is exactly the product of half its mass and its velocity squared. This energy can take many forms such as those when a meteor strikes the earth, releasing heat, light, and movement. However, energy is still conserved.
Andre Marie Ampere was born in Lyons, France, on January 20, 1775. His father, a well-to-do merchant devoted himself to his son's education. Very early in life, Andre showed genius in mathematics and an interest in many areas of knowledge. During the reign of terror characteristic of the revolution, his father was killed, leaving young Andre emotionally distraught but still with means to continue his study of mathematics, publish papers on math, and teach it.
Eventually, he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Lyceum at Lyons. Subsequently, he obtained a post at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and in 1809 became professor of analysis there.
In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted published his discovery of the magnetic field, leading Ampere to investigate the forces exerted by currents on other currents, and to develop the mathematical theory to describe them. This is the work for which he is best known and with it he became one of the foremost authorities on electricity and magnetism.
In his later years, he occupied himself with philosophical questions and preparing a work on the classification of the sciences. The latter appeared after his death in Marseilles on June 10, 1836.
Augustin Jean Fresnel was born at Broglie in Normandy on May 10, 1788. He suffered from poor health which affected his education. His mathematical abilities were noticed by his teachers when he entered the Ecole Politechnique. He soon transferred to the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, from which he graduated as an engineer. In about 1814, he began to study light, and in the next twelve years he published the memoirs firmly establishing the undulatory wave theory of light (this was done by building upon the work of Christian Huygens, Thomas Young and Dominique-Francois Jean Arago).
Michael Faraday was born at Newington, Surrey (England), on September 22, 1791. Unlike most of the men mentioned here, his father was a tradesman, a blacksmith, and Michael learned the trade of bookbinding. However, Michael's interest was in scientific investigation which led to his applying for a position under Sir Humphry Davy.
In 1813, Faraday was made assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution where he carried on investigations in chemistry and electricity under Davy's direction. He also accompanied Davy on tour in continental Europe where he met many prominent scientists of the time.
In 1825, he was made director of the laboratory, and in 1853 he was appointed Fullerian Professor of Chemistry. To allow him more time to pursue his investigations, he was relieved of the obligation to give a course of lectures to students.
Faraday's life was devoted to scientific investigation, mostly in the field of electricity. He died at Hampton Court on August 25, 1867. His best known work was his series called "Experimental Researches in Electricity" in which appeared his discovery of electromagnetic induction and his statement of the law of the production of currents by this induction.
James Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 13, 1831. He was educated at the universities in Edinburgh and Cambridge and appointed professor of natural philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1856 and at King's College in London in 1860. In 1871, he was elected to the chair of experimental physics at Cambridge where he directed the organization of the Cavendish laboratory.
Although his accomplishments were numerous, his fame comes from his studies of electricity and magnetism which were based upon theories of Hans Christian Oersted and Michael Faraday. Maxwell assumed that all magnetic and electrical phenomena were local strains and motions in a material medium, which led to the electromagnetic theory of light and the logical need for something like the ether or aether.
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was born in Arnheim, Holland in 1853. He was educated at the University of Leyden, was a teacher from 1872 through 1877 in Arnheim, and was then made professor of mathematics at the Arnheim University.
He developed Maxwell's ether theory and was one of the founders of electron theory. His other works are too numerous to mention here.
Albert Abraham Michelson was born on December 19, 1852, in Strelno, Prussia. His family moved to the United States when he was an infant. In 1873, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he later served as a science instructor (1875-1879). He took graduate courses in physics in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris, resigned from the Navy, and in 1883 became professor of physics at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio. From 1889 to 1892, he was professor of physics at Clark University. From 1892 until just before his death in 1931, he was head of the department of physics at the University of Chicago.
While instructing at Annapolis, Michelson improved an apparatus invented by J. B. Leon Foucault and established new figures for the velocity of light in a "vacuum," and thereafter developed his interferometer, establishing the wavelength of light as a practical unit of measure. He continued with a long line of accomplishments and experiments. The best known of his experiments was first performed in 1881, and performed again on a more elaborate scale in 1887 with Edward William Morley.
Edward William Morley was born on January 29, 1838, in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from Williams College in 1860. He was a chemist who became the professor of chemistry in Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1869. He was also professor of chemistry in the Cleveland Medical College for some years.
The Michelson-Morley Experiment Back
In 1887, it was thought that electromagnetic radiation (lightwaves) traveled through a medium in space called the ether. This experiment was supposed to discover a relative motion between the earth and the ether (or aether). The ether was supposed to be at rest, according to Fresnel, except in the interior of transparent media, where light traveled with less velocity than in a supposed vacuum. The earth was moving through the ether, and therefore, motion between the earth and the ether should be detectable using interferometry.
Although a very slight motion was detected, it was far removed from the expected result. With the passage of time and the formulation and development of relativity by an Einstein who was the living example of the kind and paternal scientist, the growing number of proponents of this new theory asserted that the ether did not exist.
Further experiments of the same nature continued into 1932 with results that showed low relative ether velocities which varied seasonally. One experiment of a slightly different nature was performed by Sagnac in 1914. It proved the existence of an "entrained" ether. Similar experiments by others confirmed that Sagnac was correct.
Einstein chose to ignore their work, and those who had staked their reputations on relativity suppressed even the mention of such experiments. These were the accepted physicists at the time, so ether was no longer mentioned by those who wished to avoid censure. To do so invited immediate termination of employment.
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879. He was educated at technical schools in Munich and Switzerland. From 1902 through 1909, he worked as a patent examiner in the Berne patent office. During this period, he wrote numerous scientific articles which were published, and which led to his appointment as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich (1909 through 1911). In 1913, he became the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics. In 1914, he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
Einstein left Germany and came to the United States when Hitler came into power. He received an appointment for life at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
He is known for his theory of relativity which establishes an interrelation between mass and energy, states that only relative motion of objects can be observed, and establishes time as a fourth dimension to be measured along with the three dimensions of space. There are two parts to the theory. One is the "special theory" and the other the "general theory."
It has been stated that Einstein based his special theory on the assumption that the ether did not exist. However, upon viewing his autobiographical notes, it is apparent that he based his two postulates of special relativity only upon the empirical evidence available at the time. This evidence did not include any assumptions as to the existence or non-existence of ether of any kind. Part of his theory includes the mathematical equations of Lorentz
The proponents of light as a particle chose to view relativity as an alternative to wave theory, a conclusion based upon the supposed negative results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. They believed that if the ether does not exist, then space is a vacuum and there is nothing but relative motion between objects in space.
His general theory was adopted by the most influential scientists and was the basis for the development of the atomic bomb. Its most awesome equation states that matter is composed of energy equivalent to the product of mass and the speed of light squared.
The papers upon which Einstein was working before he died use tensor analysis to explain the nature of light, treating it as a tensor wave through the medium of space, which pre-supposes a fabric to space which he chose not to call the ether. According to his biographical notes, he had been working on the theory of light as a wave even before he published his special theory in 1905, and he published his theory to augment Maxwell's work.
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was born in Kiel, Germany, on April 23, 1858. He studied at Munich and Berlin, became Professor of Physics at Kiel University in 1885, and was Professor of Physics at Berlin University from 1889 through 1928. He was the president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science from 1930 to 1935.
He is known as the father of quantum theory which shows that energy is composed of multiples of a precise quantum now known as Planck's constant.
:Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington was born in Kendal, Westmorland, England, on December 28, 1882. He studied at Owens College (now Manchester University) and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1906 to 1913; Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge from 1913; and Director of the observatory at Cambridge from 1914.
He investigated motion, the internal structure of stars, worked on linking relativity and quantum theory, published works which popularized discoveries in astronomy and physics, and related astronomy and physics to philosophy and theology. His books include Space, Time, and Gravitation (1920), The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926), Science and the Unseen World (1929), The Expanding Universe (1933), The Philosophy of Physical Science (1935), and Fundamental Theory (1946).
Eddington is considered one of the "fathers" of the theory of the expanding universe. He died in Cambridge, England, on November 22, 1944.
Edwin Powel Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri, on November 20, 1889. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1910, and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford from 1910 to 1913 where he acquired a degree in law. He then began to do research in astronomy at Yerkes Observatory at the University of Chicago, receiving a Ph. D. in 1917. He served in World War II as a battalion commander and then joined the staff at Mt. Wilson Observatory in Pasadena,California.
He first became well known for his studies of spiral nebulae and his classification of extra-galactic systems. He proved the existence of galaxies beyond our own and re-established the theory of "island universes." His work with the light spectrum of distant galaxies substantiated the theory of the expanding universe. From 1942 to 1946, he was the chief ballistician and director of the Supersonic Wind Tunnels Laboratory of the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory. He died on September 28, 1953, in San Marino, California.
He is the author of The Realm of the Nebulae (1936) and The Observational Approach to Cosmology (1937).
Vision - The art of seeing things invisible.
Swift
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