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A 19th-century hypothesis that atoms were stable vortices in the aether, with different knots representing different elements. The theory was based on the work of Helmholtz and inspired by Descartes, but was abandoned with the discovery of subatomic particles.
This type of circular motion, or vortex, would have created what Descartes observed to be the orbits of the planets about the Sun with the heavier objects spinning out towards the outside of the vortex and the lighter objects remaining closer to the center. To explain this, Descartes used the analogy of a river that carried both floating debris ...
Descartes' vortex theory of planetary motion was later rejected by Newton in favor of his law of universal gravitation, and most of the second book of Newton's Principia is devoted to his counterargument.
Learn about the history of scientific thought on how the Solar System was created and evolved, from Descartes' vortex model to the nebular hypothesis. The nebular hypothesis, proposed by Laplace and Kant, explains the formation of planets by the collapse of a giant molecular cloud.
But a theory of gravitation has to explain those laws and must not presuppose them. [6] [10] Several British physicists developed vortex theory of the atom in the late nineteenth century. However, the physicist, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, developed a quite distinct approach. Whereas Descartes had outlined three species of matter ...
Oahspe is a book published in 1882, claiming to contain new revelations from the Creator, Jehovih, and the angel hosts. It describes the history of religions, the spirit realm, and the teachings for modern times, and was written by automatic writing.
According to Descartes's theory of vortices, planetary motions were produced by the whirling of fluid vortices that filled interplanetary space and carried the planets along with them. [31] Newton concluded Book 2 [ 32 ] by commenting that the hypothesis of vortices was completely at odds with the astronomical phenomena, and served not so much ...
The General Scholium is an essay by Isaac Newton appended to his Principia, where he rejects Descartes' vortices, defends his scientific method, and expresses his theological views. He famously says "hypotheses non fingo", meaning he does not frame hypotheses, but only infers from phenomena.