Sun's Repulsive Force

SUN'S REPULSIVE FORCE

New Astronomical Discovery Discussed by Scientists

SMALL BODIES CHIEFLY AFFECTED

Effect of Light on the Larger Hardly Sensible - All the Planets and Comets Repelled From the Sun as Well as Attracted to It - Views of Professor See.

The great gathering of scientists just held In Washington devoted much attention to the study of repulsive forces, which have recently attracted so much attention among astronomers and physicists, says the St. Louis GlobeDemocrat. Since the time of Sir Isaac Newton, about two centuries ago, astronomers have explained nearly all astronomical observations by the law of universal gravitation. This great law of nature accounts for the figure of the earth and planets and the motions of the planets and comets a round the sun, and it also accounts for the motions of the double stars, of which many thousand are now known.

Recent physicists have proved that light exerts a slight repulsive force, and consequently all the planets and comets are repelled from the sun as well as attracted by it. Even a candle repels all bodies a little, but of course its effect is too small to admit of measurement. The astrophysicists recently In session discussed these new discoveries and kindred questions relating to the nebulae and new stars.

Professor T. J. J. See of the navy has an elaborate paper on this live topic In Popular Astronomy for December, and this latest contribution came in for a share of comment. Professor See in commenting on all these recent discoveries shows that very small bodies are most repelled by light, while the effect on larger bodies is hardly sensible. If the particles repelled have a diameter equal to one one-thousandth that of a grain of sand the repulsion, from the sun is equal to the attraction of gravity, and if the bodies are still smaller, the effect is even greater. This accounts for the tails of comets, the zodiacal light and other celestial phenomena.

The tails of comets have long beet known to point from the sun, and this now accounted for by the repulsion acting on the small particles which compose these airy bodies.

Most distinguished scientists write on this new subject with caution but none of them doubt its vast significance for future discovery. Professor See says: "In conclusion we should remember that gravitation condenses the matter forming the stars from a state of infinite diffusion and chaos. This condensation produces heat and light and the radiation of electrons, and the waves of light and electric forces emanating from such centers repel all matter of a certain fineness or of a certain chemical constitution so powerfully as to diffuse it again to the bounds of the universe.

"There is thus in nature a partial counteraction of the condensing and aggregating tendency of universal gravitation. Some of the matter is again spread over the universe by the indirect effects of the same agency which caused the condensation. How far this process of redistribution goes and what proportion of all the matter now falling into the stars for the maintenance of their radiation is thus effected cannot at present be determined, but probably only a small fraction of all the matter drawn in is ever expelled, so that condensation continues, with slightly retarded rate.

"It is interesting to notice, however, that if this expulsion of matter should by any possibility of future discover prove to be equal to that drawn in by the attractive force of gravitation it would be conceivable for the universe In its present state to last forever, a thing heretofore considered impossible. This perpetuity of the universe, to be sure, does not at present seem very probable, but we know as yet too little to say that it is wholly impossible. There may be some laws of nature of a far reaching character heretofore unknown and wholly unsuspected yet to be discovered. And these may show that repulsive forces in nature culled into play by gravitation itself aid in redistributing what gravitation has accumulated by its condensing power. At any rate, in the future study of the heavens repulsive forces must be considered before forming any final estimate of the destiny of the physical universe."