Talk:Le Sage's theory of gravitation/Archive 3

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Infinite Energy is not an Appropriate Topic Here

Inserting elements of Van Flandern's speculation that is not published in any reputable referencable journal or book is a violation of Wikipedia's policies, see no original research and citing sources policies. Let's stay on-topic about Le Sage's model and not introduce any unnecessary and inflamatory material.

I don't know that I would call the removed material "infamatory", but I do agree that speculation about "free energy"/"perpetual motion" is not appropriate here. If nothing else this is not only one of Van Flandern's wilder speculations, but also one of the more obscure ones. (I say this based on the fact that I have never heard of it before.) --EMS | Talk 19:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
By inflamatory I mean in the sense that the very topic of free-energy itself is highly controversial and will raise the hackles of many, like FixWiki for example. And I think we are in agreement that such rambling are not on-topic for an encyclopedia article on Le Sage's theory. User:LeSagian 18:15 PDT, July 29 2006
Dr. Van Flandern (a U of Maryland professor of physics) has published these consequences of Lesage theory in the reference cited in the article. I see no reason to think it is not "reputable" (do you know of a reason?), and it is certainly notable. It is hardly obscure, there is even an audio interview with Dr. Van Flandern available on the web, in which he discusses these aspects of Lesage theory. It also features prominently in many publications of the research group Metaresearch. The statements are no more speculative than any of the other assertions in this section of the article, and no more inflammatory.
I think it's vitally important for the criteria of inclusion, whatever they are, to be uniformly and consistently applied. To exclude Dr Van Flandern's views on the subject of Lesage gravity while including the (equally speculative) views of others, who are no more (and possibly less) "reputable" than he is, seems to me inconsistent, and it biases the article unfairly according to the whims of the editors.SJC1 19:55, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
  1. TVF is not as professor at University of Maryland, but instead according to his web site is a "research associate", which is a non-teaching job.
  2. TVF being notable does not mean that all of his ideas are.
  3. Wikiepdia is not devoted to infinite inclusion. See WP:NPOV#Undue weight.
The basics of TVF's Le Sage gravitatition ideas are included in this article, with the most germane and reasonable predictions mentioned, and with at least as much detail as any other modern variant on this theme. I don't see the need to add more on it. Also I fail to see how this "infinite energy" business enhances either this article or the presentation of TVF's ideas. IMO, it makes both look kind of silly. --EMS | Talk 20:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
1. The cited reference, which is a public advertisment for a taped lecture series on the subject of gravitation and energy, states plainly that Dr Van Flandern is a Professor at the University of Maryland. Are you saying Dr Van Flandern is guilty of fraud?
2. That is an empty syllogism. No one has claimed that Dr Van Flandern's views about Lesage theory are notable simply because HE is notable. His views on the subject are included in this article because his views on this subject are notable. Is that not correct? You stated previously that these particular views of Dr Van Flandern were unfamiliar to you (EMS), and therefore they are not notable. I really don't think you can equate "familiarity to EMS" with "notable". For example, the sentence preceeding the sentence that I inserted talks about Dr Van Flandern's contention that Lesage gravity provides an explanation of the "dark matter" problem. Why is that more "notable" or more pertinent to this article than Dr Flandern's contention that Lesage gravity provides for infinite energy and superliminal galactic travel?
3. These views are certainly germane. As to whether they are "reasonable" or whether they are "kind of silly", we aren't here to decide this. The editors of this article have already decided that Dr Van Flandern is sufficiently reputable and his views on Lesage gravity are sufficiently notable to be included in the article. You haven't given any rational justification for excluding his views about extracting energy from the flux. In fact, I note that the article already contains (in a footnote) the claim of Kelvin that it would be possible to construct a perpetual motion machine using the Lesagean flux. Why wasn't this statement excluded from the article? Why is Kelvin entitled to talk about infinite energy, but Dr. Van Flandern is not? SJC1 22:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
The editors here have decided that since he has published an article printed in a reputable publication (as cited) these should be mentioned under current developments just as others in publication are. If you can cite any reference as a printed paper that is also so published (not video tape of talks or discussions) then the material can be considered for inclusion. I see you did not read the Wikipedia policies as to no original research and citing sources. Further, I doubt you will get any concensus of the editors that such a topic is relevant and on-topic for this article. User:LeSagian 18:15 PDT, July 29 2006
SJC1 - To answer the first of your questions above, I refer you to The U. Md Physics department directory and more relvantly the "V" listings. TVF is not listed. I would also point out that no such position is listed in TVF's resume, and can assure you there is no way that the U. Md. physics department would ever have considered hiring TVF for anything recently, and especially not for a teaching position. (As best I can tell based on the reasearch I did to answer your question, even the "research assistant" business is incorrect.)
Beyond that, the issue is where to draw the line with the coverage of the modern variants. Please realize that the more you say about them, the more credibility you are giving them. However, none of these modern variants hold much water in the opinion of mainstream physicists to begin with. I personally am very comfortable with the line on coverage as it is current drawn. (However, I will admit that I helped to draw it.) --EMS | Talk 02:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


About Dr Van Flandern's credentials, please see

http://www.lightworksav.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2857

Here's what it says (note the last sentence):

Complete Gravity Model and Free Energy cofe109 $24.95
Presented by Dr. Tom Van Flandern: Propagation of gravity has been experimentally shown to exceed the speed of light (Phys. Lett A 250, #1-3, 1-11, 1998). This indicates that a flat-spacetime particle gravity interpretation (originally attributed to LeSage) may be the preferred model. The LeSage perspective also provides the best information for free energy sources since the sea of classical gravitons can in principle be used for propulsion as easily as a windmill.... Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau. Easy-to-understand slide show by a U of Maryland Professor of Physics. Video 70 min. NTSC

So, I ask again, are you charging Dr Van Flandern with fraud? You seem to be even suggesting that he was never a research assistant, let alone a professor. Do you have any basis for this insinuation?

Also, it seems to me you have reversed your objection. First you objected to the extra comments because they make "the presentation of TVF's ideas ... look kind of silly", but now you are objecting to the very same comments because they give TVF's ideas "more credibility". I'm sorry, but these two reasons for your objection seem diametrically opposite and mutually exclusive to each other. Until I hear a more well-reasoned justification for suppressing this aspect of Dr Van Flandern's research into Lesage gravity, I will continue to think it deserves mention in the article. SJC1 02:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. A double-check of the resume turned up:
May 1992 - July 2000: Research Associate, Physics Department, University of Maryland, College Park; consultant on Global Positioning System dynamics.
Once again, this is not a teaching job. As for the "professor" business, it comes from a site that is not Van Flandern's and could be someone else's misinterpreting Van Fladern's credentials. I can tell you based on TVF's resume alone that he was never a professor at U. Md.
As for the "contradiction" in my edits: To someone more informed, this stuff would look silly. For thise who are less informed, you are giving TVF more attention than he deserves. Either way, your text does not work.
P.S. Please see WP:3RR. You cannot revert an article more than 3 times in 24 hours. The first edit does not count (as it is an initial change) but restoring it since does. So I will revert the article again (for the last time for a while). --EMS | Talk 04:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The contradiction in your edits remains, because what you just said applies equally well to all the other text in that section, such as Dr. Van Flandern's claim that the reduction in the force of gravity at great distances predicted by Lesage theory can account for the greater than expected gravitational attraction implied by the rotation curves of galaxies, which is the basis of the "dark matter" problem. To any informed person, Van Flandern's claim is silly (and self-evidently wrong), whereas to those who are less informed (as you put it), the article gives the claim more attention than it deserves.
This is the fundamental problem with your edits. You are trying to pick and choose statements based on what does or doesn't seem plausible to YOU (EMS). This is precisely what the Wikipedia policies tell us we MUST NOT do, because we are not qualified to pass judgement. All we can do is follow Wikipedia policy, which is to make sure the material is verifiable from a reputable source. Is Dr. Van Flandern a reputable source for "non-silly" views on Lesage gravity? That's the question. The question is NOT "Does EMS think this particular view expressed by Van Flandern makes sense, whereas that particular view expressed by Van Flandern is silly?". No, that is not the question. Wikipedia doesn't care (and shouldn't care) what EMS or SJC or any other editor thinks is physically plausible. The task of the editor here is ONLY to assess whether the material is from a reputable source. It sounds to me like you (EMS) are saying Dr Van Flandern is not reputable. If you really believe that, then you are obligated to lobby for removing all his views from the article. You are not entitled, as a Wikipedia editor, to pick and choose, essentially constructing your own view of the subject by selectively quoting from other people. If you are going to represent the views of someone (on a particular subject), then you need to give a full and accurate representation of their views (on that subject). It's too easy to edit someone's words to make them say what you want. As a Wikipedia editor, you need to learn to resist that temptation. SJC1 05:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
You are, as always, missing the point & issue. The issue is, what's relevant to the topic of Le Sage's gravity idea, not Van Flandern's! It's like saying that Auther Conan Dole's idea's on faries is somehow relevant to his works on Sherlock Homes. There exist no reputable source (as in published in any journal or book) that was edited, peer reviewed by others, and independently found that the idea(s) have enough merit as to be published by such. If so, then simply cite those references, and you'll have a valid point, perhaps. If not, you are in violation of Wikipedia policies on this matter (not to mention, off-topic here). As has been pointed out to you several times now, because Van Flandern says so doesn't cut it. This is equally true for any person. Thus the no original research policy! An encyclopedia is not the proper venue for unsustantiated speculation. Therefore the editors here will continue to remove your unwarranted and off-topic edits. User:LeSagian 23:20 PDT, July 29 2006
I agree with EMS and LeSagian that the passage about "Infinite Energy" should be removed. The section "Current status of the theory" only describe (as short as possible!) the fundamental ideas of the authors - and also should be connected to the basic theory of Fatio and Le Sage. For example Van Flandern's proposals about "finite gravitational range" or "speed of gravity" are actually related to fundamental problems of the Fatio/Le Sage-theory. But there is no relevance for the "infinite energy" passage in this article! And publications from the research group Metaresearch (where Van Flandern himself is the "president and head research scientist" !!) are not reputable and independet sources of information. --D.H 09:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Looks like the point of contention is what we call a reputable source. Lesagian says "reputable source (as in published in any journal or book) that was edited, peer reviewed by others, and independently found that the idea(s) have enough merit as to be published by such". But this isn't what the Wikipedia policy says. There is a policy entitled "What is a Reputable Source?", and it says specifically that it is a scholarly scientific journal or a book from an established academic book publisher. If we follow this policy, then most of the existing sources in this article are not "reputable". Looking back at previous Discussion, I see the "reputableness" of the sources has been challenged before. The response, at least from EMS, was that we can include sources that are "notable", even if they don't meet the Wikipedia definition of "reputable". So, if notability is the criterion, then I think Dr. Van Flandern's views are at least as notable as many of the other views represented in the article. He has published a best-selling book, as well as contributing to "Pushing Gravity", and well as giving public talks and lectures at scientific conferences. The acceptance of his talks at conferences is at least as much of a "peer review" as acceptance in a privately published book like "Pushing Gravity". In fact, Dr. Van Flandern himself regards many of the other chapters of that book as being without merit, since they do not accept the need for FTL particles. And Dr Van Flandern's views are far more notable (IMHO) than those other contributors, and yet their views are included in this Wikipedia article. Could this be because some of the editors of this Wikipedia article are actually contributors to "Pushing Gravity"? Is it allowed, under Wikipedia policy, for editors to cite their own privately published materials? If not, then I agree that Dr Van Flandern's material probably can't be allowed, but in that case much of the other material in the existing article also can't be allowed. I think we have a double standard here. SJC1 16:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I find that Wikipedia needs some flexibility on the issue of what is "reputable", or rather relevant for inclusion in an article. For major scientific theories like general relativity, publication in a leading journal alone is insufficient to justify even the mention of a result. OTOH, for an article like this which is almost starved for articles in major journals, the use of WP:IAR is more germane. However, we do need to set parameters for inclusion even here. The mention of TVF's ideas at the least is a given. TVF is notable enough to merit a Wikipedia article, and IMO it is unfair to the readers to leave them unaware that work continues in this area. But ought we to present TVF's theory in all its glory? It is here that myself and other editors disagree wtih you. IMO at least, the details can be gleaned from the links to his work (and maybe we should include a link to the Meta Research web site also). So please remember that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Thank you. --EMS | Talk 19:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  1. SJC1 wrote: Could this be because some of the editors of this Wikipedia article are actually contributors to "Pushing Gravity"? Hmmm...I think this is a problem, cause there are too many references to the book "Pushing Gravity" (although I find the book very interesting). As far as I know, the only modern Le Sage-Type Models, which appeared in "peer reviewed, reputable sources" are the works of Radzievskii (Vsesoyuz. Astronom.-Geodezich. Obsch. Byull.) and Adamut (Nuovo Cimento). Both are EM-wave variants of Le Sage-Gravity. For example, in the german version de:LeSage-Gravitation I only included the theory of Radzievskii (as an example of a modern Le Sage-model with vG = c) and Arp's model (as an example for models with vG >> c and for mass-accretion) in the "Neuere Entwicklungen" ("current Status") passage. Also a short description of the Allais-Effect and the Majorana-experiments is in that section.
  2. a) Is "Pushing Gravity" a reputable source for the historical part of the theory? Yes, I think. For example, Evans' historical article is cited in Rowlinson's paper, published in "Notes and Records of the Royal Society. London". b) Is "Pushing Gravity" a reputable source for the "current status of the theory"? Or in other words: Should the papers of Van Flandern, Stowe, Mingst, Buanomano, Edwards etc. be cited in the article? This is a difficult question.... But I agree with EMS, that a Metaresearch-Link maybe should added in the External Link section --D.H 12:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that "Pushing Gravity" is given too much prominence in this article, especially since other sources of equal or greater "repute" (such as media presentations of Dr. Van Flandern's lectures presented at scientific conferences) are being excluded. The archived Discussion page shows that the repute of "Pushing Gravity" has been challenged more than once, but the challenges have been squelshed by three of the editors here... who I suspect are all co-authors of "Pushing Gravity". I think the accepted Wikipedia etiquitte is for authors to recuse themselves from voting on whether their own works warrant inclusion in an article. If all the authors of "Pushing Gravity" recuse themselves from voting, then I think the only advocate for giving such a prominent place to "Pushing Gravity" in this article is EMS. SJC1 19:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
LOL! TVF as an "authoritative source"! I will acknowledge TVF as being authoritative about his own ideas, but not for science in general. I won't deny that the PG editors have exerted a strong and possibly distorting influence on this article. However, all that you are showing me (once again) is that this article can easily do worse. --EMS | Talk 21:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's put things in perspective. I doubt seriously that SJC (perhaps Simon J Clark) has any actual interest in Van Flandern or his views. Call me jaded, but, if one were to look at the IP behind this sock it just might look quite familiar and I think this whole track is a Trojan horse. However, I'll assume good faith & stick to the facts. Fact, less than 20% of the references in the Wikipedia article point to articles in Pushing Gravity. Of those that do, Evans, van Lunteren, and Martins are clearly purely in historical context (8%). That leaves Radzievskii & Kagalnikova and Van Flandern as theory variants (5%), while Stowe & Mingst articles address specific elements of the basic Le Sage model (5%). The book is not privately published, nor is its source a vanity press. As should be expected, over 80% of the references come from a variety of publications, many leading back to original source documents. User:LeSagian 16:42 PDT, August 2, 2006
Paul - I strongly doubt that SJC1 is a sock puppet for your arch-nemesis here. I would think that TVF is one of the few people that he would dislike more than yourself. Yet I do see the same single-mindedness in SJC1 that make the other editor such a nuisance even though he/(she?) was a mainstream editor. IMO, SJC1 is sincerely a TVF groupie, or if SJC1 is a sock puppet then I would expect the puppeteer to be Tomvf, who is TVF himself. (Note however that the last time I dealt with TVF here he did not withhold his identity from me, and I see no reason why he would do so now. OTOH, SJC1 is displaying the same intellect, caution, and patience that I saw when I dealt with TVF as Tomvf.) --EMS | Talk 20:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
@SJC - My assumption, that maybe there are too many PG-Reverences has nothing to do with your absurd claim, that Van Flandern's writings are "more reputable sources" than Pushing Gravity. If you didn't notice: The passage about Van Flandern is the longest passage in the "Current Status" section - I think that's enough. "Infinite Energy" has nothing to do with the basic idea of Fatio/Le Sage and should therefore not mentioned in the article - so I can't understand, why you cannot accept this. In only think, that the writings of Radzievskii and Adamut could be more detailed in the "Current Status" Section. I will change that in time... --D.H 10:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
D.H - Perhaps you missed the earlier discussion, in which it was pointed out that "infinite energy" is already in the existing article (at least the English version), because Lord Kelvin pointed out that it is (in principle) possible to construct a perpetual motion machine, extracting limitless energy, from the flux of ultramundane particles. This idea is actually MORE a part of the historical and the current theory of Lesage than several of the other topics that are presented in the current article, such as the geological "expanding earth" sections and the extensive discussion of Majoranna, and certainly FAR more relevant to Lesage theory than the idea that it resolves the Pioneer anomaly and explains the heat flow of planets. In fact, infinite energy is even more a part of Lesage theory than is Dr Van Flandern's proposal that it resolves the "dark matter" problem. It seems clear that some editors here are simply trying to suppress this particular aspect (infinite energy) of Lesage theory. I think EMS put his finger on it when he pointed out that any discussion of infinite energy has two different effects on the article, depending on the knowledge level of the reader. For readers who are not knowledgeable, it may be regarded as misleading and giving undue credibility to the idea, whereas to readers who are more fully indoctrinated in the throught processes of conventional science it may seems "silly" (to use EMS's word) and undermines the credibility. But the same double-edged problem afflicts ALL the statements in this article, so this is not a reason to exclude things. The purpose of the article is to explain Lesage theory accurately, and if people wish to conclude from this accurate description that it is silly, based on their pre-conceived conventional ideas, then that is their prerogative. Let us remember that many things that seemed "silly" at one time were later found to be true. It isn't the role of Wikipedia editors to arbitrate truth or silliness, but merely to report accurately and without bias.SJC1 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. It is meant to document existing knowledge. For example, in 1905 an article on special relativity would have been rejected as original research and in 1908 such an article would have documented the debate that it had ignited and would have reflected the then-popular view that SR is not a viable theory. This is all good and proper given the mission on this site. That SR would later become widely accepted is irrelevant to the earlier situations. So if this infinite energy business starts panning out and people start quietly singing the praises of TVF as a result, then Wikipedia will happily document that new reality. But for now, it must work with and within the current reality, which leaves TVF's infinite energy proposal as a relativity minor point which currently is not worth documenting here. --EMS | Talk 19:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
SJC - 1) Partially your criticism is correct. I also think that the Majorana-passage is too long (for example: it is longer than the whole section of Le Sage's basic theory!) and the Expanding-Earth-passage should be shortened and transferred into the current-status-section.
2) I know Kelvin's theory and his speculations on infinite energy. But that doesn't change the problem: I see no connection to the basic ideas and problems of the theory, which are well-documented in various historical papers: These are drag, heat, aberration, mean-free-path, porous structure of matter, speed of the corpuscules. A few months ago I put a link to Kelvin's original paper into the external link section.
Kelvin wrote (p.76): "A body having different permeabilities in different directions would, if of manageable dimensions, give us a means for drawing energy from the inexhaustible store laid up in the ultramundane corpuscules, thus: - First, turn the body into a position of minimum weight; Secondly, lift it through any height; Thirdly, turn it into a position of maximum weight; Fourthly, let it down to its primitive level. It is easily seen that the first and third of those operations are performed without the expenditure of work; and, on the whole, work is done by gravity in operations 2 and 4. In the corresponding set of operations performed upon a moveable body in the neighbourhood of a fixed magnet, as much work is required for operations 1 and 3 as is gained in operations 2 and 4; the magnetisation of the moveable body being either intrinsic or inductive, or partly intrinsic and partly inductive, and the part of its aeolotropy (if any), which depends on inductive magnetisation, being due either to magne-crystallic quality of its substance, or to its shape."
Kelvin himself placed this passage at the end of his paper, after discussing all the essential problems of Le Sage gravity. I suggest you read the whole paper of Kelvin, then you should see which parts are actually essential for the theory and which are not. --D.H 18:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I've read Kelvin's "whole" paper. I've also read at least three papers by Maxwell on this subject, in each of which he emphasized the non-conservation of energy (for ordinary mundane matter) as THE MAIN consequence of Lesage theory. The very fact that an isolated cold body spontaneously becomes hot shows how energy can be acquired by ordinary matter from the ultra-mundane bombardment, and the ultra-mundane corpuscles represent a constantly refreshed supply of low entropy. It's true that Maxwell regarded these features of Lesage theory as reasons for discounting the theory (in fact, as THE most compelling reasons to discount the theory), but Lord Kelvin did not, nor does Dr. Van Flandern. But regardless of whether you believe that these energy implications discredit Lesage or point the way to wonderful new technological potentials (as does Dr Van Flandern), there is no doubt that they are highly important features of the theory.
The only other feature of Lesage theory that rivals the energy implications in importance is the implication of faster-than-light travel. Again, you can regard this implication as a disproof of Lesage theory, or you can accept the implication and seek to apply it to enable galactic travel. This aspect of Lesage theory is vitally important to many researchers, notably the astronomer Dr Van Flandern, because some form of galactic travel is necessary to explain the origins of certain structures on the surface of Mars that have recently been shown scientifically to have been artificially produced. Another example of a researcher who was led to Lesage theory because it supports a larger set of non-mainstream views about science is Dr Arp. In his case, he adopted Lesage theory because it supports the requirement to explain redshifts for relatively nearby objects.
But the motivations of researchers is not relevant to this article. It should focus on the main features, predictions, and implications of Lesage theory, and there is no doubt that the ability to extract limitless amounts of energy from the gravitational flux is one of the most important, if not THE most important prediction of the theory. Kelvin's proposal for extracting limitless amounts of work is perfectly valid, assuming Lesage theory is valid. This was emphasized by Maxwell, Poincare, and many others. Any one of the excellent expositions of Lesage theory make it clear that the energy implications are of fundamental importance, so I don't think it's right to suppress those implications in this article - certainly not when the article gives space to so many relatively trivial and dubious implications. (For example, is the speculation about the Pioneer anomaly really of central importance for Lesage theory?) SJC1 19:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I can be sympathetic to a discussion of infinite energy extraction is the section "Predictions of Le Sage theory" given that this claim is not peculiar to TVF's theory. However, I continue to see little need to feature it as part of TVF's theory in the "Current status of the theory" section. Even so, I strongly advise defering to MRE and D.H on the issue of covering this. --EMS | Talk 20:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Just say no to TvF

This is the page Le Sage's theory of gravitation and has to focus on the history of science aspect. Some Neo-LeSagianism can go to "Current status of the theory", but it is defintively not the place to argue about Free energy suppression or Tom van Flandern. --Pjacobi 12:19, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The section on "current status of the theory" doesn't really seem to contain anything "neo". Take for example the first paragraph, and examine each sentence for something new.
"A corpuscular model that is similar in many respects to Le Sage's and Kelvin's models has been proposed by Tom Van Flandern."
Well, there's nothing new so far, except advertising for Dr Van Flandern.
"Van Flandern argues that lack of apparent aberration in the Sun's gravitational force on the Earth implies corpuscular speeds much greater than c..."
Right. Still nothing new. This was obvious to Laplace, and was clearly explained by Poincare, so there is nothing "neo" about this, other than attributing it to Dr Van Flandern, who I'm sure is flattered.
"...a notable feature of this hypothesis is a that a separate medium is proposed and necessary to act as carrier of light."
Now wait a minute! What has this to do with Lesage gravity? Of course, the idea of a light-carrying medium is not new, but even if it was, this surely has no relevance to the issues involved with a corpuscular Lesage theory. Contrary to the quoted statement, a separate light medium is obviously not a "feature of the hypothesis" of superluminal corpuscles. Now, when I suggested inserting a comment about how Lesage gravity implies a limitless energy source (which actually IS a feature of the theory espoused by Dr Van Flandern), I was roundly scolded on the grounds that it wasn't directly relevant to Lesage theory. And yet here we find mention of the separate medium for light propagation, which has nothing at all to do with Lesage theory. So why is this here? And why is it being attributed to Dr Van Flandern? But let's go on...

The requirement of two separate fields, one for EM and another for graviation is both relavant and unique to the idea that the root mean speed of the corpuscules is greater than c. To me it does seem rather silly, but it is in the current concepts proposed specifically for this theory, thus relavant to the current status section. As already noted by others, mentioning Le Sage field energy is no more necessary than mentioning quantum field (zero-point) energy in the Quantum Theory article (and it is not). Both theories have it as a fundamental foundational aspect. --LeSagian 16:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

No, there are not two FIELDS. A corpuscle theory of gravity does not posit a FIELD for the propagation of gravity, it posits corpuscles (hence the name). To say that, in addition to space being traversed by gravitational corpuscles it is also filled with some kind of medium for the propagation of light is completely separate from the gravitational theory... unless you are postulating that the medium of light propagation somehow influences or guides the gravitational corpuscles... but Dr Van Flandern posits no such thing. His light medium has nothing whatsoever to do with his gravitational corpuscles. So I repeat that this aspect of Dr Van Flandern's personal world view is totally irrelevant to this article on Lesage gravity. I also repeat that the postulate of a light carrying medium is neither new nor original with Dr Van Flandern, so even if it was relevant (which it obviously isn't), it doesn't belong here. Prior to Maxwell, many people "filled space several times over with different ethers to carry different properties". This is not a new idea, not original with Dr Van Flandern, and it is irrelevant to Lesage gravity. SJC1 17:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
"He also argues that a finite gravitational range of Le Sage particle explains the observed rotation curves of galaxies without resorting to proposing an otherwise undetectable dark matter."
Well, okay, this is new, and it does seem to be unique to Dr Van Flandern. Unfortunately, it also makes absolutely no sense. This is another of those statements that EMS claims to find objectionable, i.e., statements that are misleading to dumb readers and obviously silly to smart readers. The reason for postulating dark matter is to explain why the galaxies seem to be held together more strongly than can be explained based on their visible matter. It's as if gravity remains stronger at greater distances than would be predicted based on the inverse square law. Now, according to Lesage theory, the force of gravity is actually WEAKER at great distances, because the asymmetry in the flux gets "smudged out" by scattering. So, to include the above quoted statement just makes the article look foolish and silly.

Well, perhaps it does seem foolish to you just as two media does to me (a violation of KISS/Ockham's Razor) but it is proposed, part of current thinking, and unique to this topic. --LeSagian 16:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The criterion for inclusion in a Wikipedia article is not just that something "is proposed, part of [one individual's] current thinking, and unique to this topic". It must also come from a reputable source. (Actually, it is also supposed to be more than just ONE person's thinking, unless the article is ABOUT THAT PERSON, and I am doubtful that anyone other than Dr Van Flandern has ever published anything in support of his "dark matter" idea.) My claim is that the book "Pushing Gravity" is not a reputable source. I think everyone agrees that it does not qualify as a reputable source according to the strict Wikipedia policy statement, but one editor (EMS) has argued for bending the rules to allow its inclusion. My reason for commenting on Dr Van Flandern's "dark matter" idea, and for explaining why it is obvious nonsense, is just to encourage other editors to take another look at that source, and ultimately I hope that they will agree that it is not a reputable source and we should not bend the rules to include it.
By the way, another one of my contentions is that editors who are also authors of the book in question (or anyone who would stand to profit financially from encouraging people to acquire the book) are required, both by Wikipedia policy and by common ethical standards, to recuse themselves from lobbying or voting on its inclusion in this encyclopedia.
Yes, I quickly came to realize that your TVF ploy was, in fact, a Trojan. As for encouraging anyone to acquire any one of the 37 referenced articles, where is that done? If you are in fact one Simon J. Clark this is not the first time you have engaged in such dishonest maneuvering. BTW Ed, as can now see, you were fooled by SJC1. If it is one Simon J. Clark he certainly is no fan TVF, but is inherrently a dishonest personality as is evidenced here by this behavior. LeSagian 17:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
So there you have it. The only thing mentioned in that paragraph that is actually new and attributable to Dr Van Flandern is something that is self-evdently wrong. This, again, shows the drawback of relying upon non-reputable sources. SJC1 02:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I think LeSagian's assumption is correct: the-mathpages-author = fixwiki = SJC1. But in this special case SJC1 is right - the "enormous expenditure of external power" is fundamental for Maxwell's criticism. See Article Atom, (Collected Papers, p. 477). And this is of course related to Kelvin's mechanism of gaining infinite energy from the ultramundane corpuscules. So I included Maxwell's passage "We have devoted more space to this theory than it seems to deserve..." and his remarks on the external power problem in the "Kelvin's revival" section. See also "his" (SJC1's?) site at Fatio, Lesage, and the Camisards. Of course, there are some unsupported claims concerning the influence Fatio's on Le Sage, but his Fatio/Le Sage related pages are very interesting. Maybe I should add some links to them in the external links section, as I did in the German version.... --D.H 19:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


Expand the Discussion of Stowe's Energy Deposition Model

The existing article ends with a section on the "current status" of the theory, and this section concludes with a brief discussion of Paul Stowe's energy deposition and drag model. It says:

"Still others have tackled the issues of energy deposition and drag [ref to Paul Stowe and Mingst/Stowe in Pushing Gravity] showing that, at least within the context of the very same assumed parameters of the model, both of these can be matched to actual measurements, including the net thermal emissions of planetary bodies and the slowing of the Pioneer and Ulysses spacecraft (the so-called Pioneer Anomaly)."

I don't think this is adequate to provide any meaningful sense of what is being referred to. To give the reader a better sense of this current research, I think one or two additional sentences should be added. Something like this:

It's notable that, according to this model, the energy deposition rate is independent of both the density and the speed of the gravitational corpuscles, inversely proportional to the degree of attenuation, and directly proportional to the size of an object. All four of these fundamental conclusions are contrary to what all other researchers had concluded previously.

Adding these two sentences gives a much more accurate view of the current status of the theory, since it shows how utterly misguided all previous researchers have been (or at the very least it shows what a huge range of opinion there is in this field of research). SJC1 20:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Your hmm...ironical comments to Stowe/Mingst are not very useful. We have not to decide, whether the Stowe/Mingst or Van Flandern Models are right or wrong or whether they contradict mainstream-views. I have another proposal as an final remark(like in the German version):
It must be again marked here that since the days of Maxwell and Poincaré this theory applies as disproved. These indicated solutions are only stated to point out that the theory is further represented outside mainstream. --D.H 08:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

First, the comment wasn't TO Stowe/Mingst as editors of this Wikipedia article, it was ABOUT the referenced work of Stowe/Mingst in the book "Pushing Gravity". This distinction is important, because Wikipedia policy (and normal ethical standards) prohibits editors from inserting references to themselves or their own works into Wikipedia articles.

Second, the comment was not ironical, nor was it to decide whether Stowe's model is right or wrong, nor even to say that it contradicts mainstream views. (I note that the alternative comment you proposed DOES state that Stowe contradicts the mainstream.) My view is that if the article is going to include a discussion of the research of Stowe and Mingst, it ought to give an accurate and meaningful representation of that research. It's silly to simply state AS FACT that Stowe has "SHOWN" that his Lesage model explains both planetary thermal emissions AND the Pioneer anomaly... and then end! These are Nobel Prize results! Remember, earlier in the article it was explained that ALL previous researchers (including those who favor Lesage theory) had agreed that any simple model like Stowe's would vaporize the planets in a fraction of a second, so what has changed? The reader will be totally mystified. What is different about Stowe's model that allows it to give such improved results?? The article needs to give just a little more detail, to answer this question, and that's the intent of my proposal. Stowe's key insight is that the deposited heat is totally independent of the speed and the density of the flux, and that it is actually INVERSELY proportional to the attenuation of material bodies.

Now, it's true that I personally don't regard the research of Mingst and Stowe as worthy of inclusion in this article, because it doesn't qualify under Wikipedia policies, so my first preference would be to delete the reference entirely. I'm on record as saying that I think ALL the reference to "Pushing Gravity" should be deleted. However, failing that, I think the only sensible alternative is to give an accurate and meaningful description of their research, so that readers can assess it for themselves. Do I believe readers will conclude the research of Mingst and Stowe is nonsense? Yes, I do, but that's just my opinion. The important thing for the article is that it represent the research accurately. SJC1 16:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Renewal of the current status section

1): I have shortened the "Connections to geology"-section and removed it into the current status section.
2): In the external link section are new links contra Fatio-Le Sage gravity (from mathpages.com); and pro Fatio-Le Sage gravity (Arp, Stowe/Mingst, Buonomano, Van Flandern).
3): The current status-section is divided into 2 main sections: a) Beginning with models from sources, which are not connected with "C. Roy Keys Inc, Apeiron press or Pushing Gravity". These are Radzievskii, Buanomano, Adamut, Shneiderov...) By the way: The Radzievskii paper is only reprinted in PG. b) Then come the passages with references actually related to this publishing house: Van Flandern, Arp, Jaakkola, Stowe.
4) In the Van Flandern passage the connection of his "light-carrying-medium" and the heat-problem shortly is described.
5) The Stowe/Mingst passage is written in a more neutral manner.
6) A final remark passage is included. --D.H 17:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the title of this section, it seems to me that "Current Status" is inaccurate, expect for the first clause of the first sentence, which actually states the current status (i.e., not a viable theory). All the rest of the section is more accurately described as "Recent Activity", because none of it changes the status of the theory. In other words, none of the fatal objections to the theory that have been described in the preceeding article have been given a new "status" by any of this activity.
We have to be careful here, because when dealing with a topic like this, one that is believed by every qualified scientist to be already disproved, there will be no current literature RE-disproving it. So, to end the article with a list of a handful of non-mainstream claims, and to exclude any mention of the obvious (to a scientist) fallacies of those claims, is misleading. If the theory was not already fully disproven, there would be plenty of mainstream publications to cite giving the explanations of the fallacies, but since it's already disproven, there is a dearth of mainstream publications to cite in refutation. As a result, this "Recent Activity" section comes out very unbalanced, which does not at all reflect the true "status" of the theory. This is why I think, at the very least, the section title should be changed to something like "Recent Activity". This avoids any implication that this activity is somehow a measure or indication of the "status" of the theory. SJC1 00:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. I agree with your edits. --D.H 06:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
SJC1 - I also think that you have created a better treatment. Thank you.
BTW - There is one item that needs some attention: As you noted above, the Mingst and Stowe reference at the end of the "Recent activity" section is somewhat questionable. A case that it is OR can be made, yet at the same time is providing a possible explanation for the Pioneer anomaly makes it somewhat intriguing and also shows why there is continuing interest in Le Sage gravitation. So for me its editorial pluses and minuses more-or-less balance out, or at least balance out well enough that I do not automatically remove it. I am wondering how others feel about it. --EMS | Talk 21:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Revival and 20th century

1) The revival and the 20th century section are combined, because corpuscular and wave models together were analyzed and criticised by J.J. Thomson and Poincare - it makes no sense to devide them. Also little chapter's are included.
2) Based on the German translation of Poincaré's Science and Method (Wissenschaft und Methode, pp. 186-191), and because of its importance, I have extendet the Poincare-passage.
3) The Majorana passage is shortened and moved into the predictions-section. Also the GR-Aberration part is there now. --D.H 15:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Others Have Argued...

I think the third paragraph of the "Recent Activity" section needs some work. It begins by saying "Others have argued that the thermodynamic problem might be avoided if the energy of the absorbed particles or waves were converted to new mass..." but no reference is given. There are later references to "expanding Earth" theories, but those refer only to the accumulation of mass due to accretion of the ultra-mundane corpuscles themselves, not to conversion of the absorbed energy into mass. So, unless someone can cite a reference for the claim about energy conversion into new mass, I think it should be deleted. (The footnote on that claim makes it clear that it's a silly idea, but if someone can cite a reputable reference I'd be willing to leave it in - despite it's obvious silliness.)

Also, the references in this paragraph to Yarkovsky and Hilgenberg are misleading, because they point to history articles written in 2003 and 2006, whereas the actual work of those two guys was done 1900 and 1933 respectively. This can hardly be considered "current" or "recent". Even the last reference (Shneiderov) is to a paper from 1961, almost half a century ago, so it seems more appropriate for this paragraph to be moved to the 20th century section. SJC1 20:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I went ahead and moved the "expanding Earth" paragraph to the "Predictions" section, under the sub-heading of Mass Accretion. Also, pending a reputable reference, I omitted the claim about "new mass from energy".

Having done this, the "Recent Activity" section is revealed to be just a "Pushing Gravity" section, with Arp, Van Flandern, Stowe, and Mingst. The only other works cited in the section are from 1960, 1976 and 1982, which isn't all that "recent" or "current", and one of those was reprinted in "Pushing Gravity". In addition, Jaakkola, Buonomano, and Adamut are also contributors to "Pushing Gravity, so EVERY single thing in this concluding section of the article comes from a "Pushing Gravity" contributor (and none of it has any scientific merit, by the way). Maybe the last section should be entitled "Pushing Gravity - The Book", or perhaps "The C Roy Keys Revival"? SJC1 07:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL! Like I indicated above, the PG editors may have had a distorting effect on the article, and that part is indeed the nexus of their influence. Even so, is that an indication of bias on the part of the editors, or is it an indication at how successful the PG project was at gathering together the current Le Sage gravitation efforts in one place? Overall, I believe that it is some of both.
One of the previous editors on this page very much disliked that section for similar reasons, but then again he wanted to trash the whole article (or at least give it a very, very anti-Le Sage gravitation POV). As I have indicated before, I feel that it is unfair to the readers not to mention some of the ongoing efforts (as some reades will have encountered these ideas elsewhere and mentioning them here will help to put them into context). Yet at the same time, they have no credibility in the scientific community.
I am willing to listen to any proposal you may have for revising that section or even deleting it. Just realize that you will need to work with the group (which is mostly PG editors) in doing this. The best I can do with this page is to be a counter-weight aginst excesses. It is possible that I could support you against the group, but I would need a compelling reason to do so. (However, if you are at all in the right, you could find support from some of the other editors here. In general, Wikipedia editors are willing to set aside personal biases for the sake of the project.) --EMS | Talk 16:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
On the point of whether absorbed energy is transformed to new mass in some Le Sage models, this is certainly true. You can see this in Kierein's paper in PG and in my own paper there. The geologist G. Scalera is currently a fan of this idea. SJC1 calls the idea "silly" but he has evidently not delved much into expanding Earth research.MRE 19:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
PS. It is also mentioned by Arp in his preface to PG, a version of which is linked to at the bottom of the article.MRE 20:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The silliness was made apparent by the footnote pointing out that Poincare's lower limit on the absorbed energy equates to 18000 Earth masses per second, so the Earth's mass would double in 0.00005 seconds. Current geological evidence does not support a mass accretion rate of this magnitude.SJC1 21:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh really? Poincare's analysis was based on the Le Sage particle model. In that model, to avoid the aberration of gravity in the Solar System, he requires the speed of gravity to be many times greater than c. Now if you suppose this, and also that this energy were being totally absorbed by gravitating masses, then you do have too much heat production if all the energy were being absorbed. But if we use the Le Sage wave model (actually Lorentz, Brush, etc.), then gravity travels at the speed of light. Poincare himself pointed out that gravitational aberration may not result at this lower speed of gravity, ie, that some counterbalancing effect kicks in. Carlip has discussed how this may arise in the GR context. At this lower speed the energy deposition rate is much lower and so the fractional mass increase could be at a much lower level. Most of the EE models which invoke Le Sage would be towards the wave model.MRE 21:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Models based on waves propagating at the speed of light do not fare any better than particle-based theories. There is no "counterbalancing effect" for a wave-based Le Sage theory. As explained in the article, general relativity avoids the aberration problem because it includes velocity-dependent terms resulting in a non-central attraction, something which most definitely does not apply to a wave-based Le Sage theory. (Ask Carlip to explain this to you, if you don't understand it.) Also, as Poincare pointed out, a light-speed theory results in unacceptably high drag, as well as aberration, and finally, the amount of absorbed energy STILL equates to a preposterous rate of mass accretion. (Conservatively, it would double the Earth's mass every 3500 years.) Any one of these problems is sufficient, by itself, to rule out the idea. Taken together, they show that the idea isn't just wrong, it's "wrong cubed". SJC1 19:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that Carlip's initials are SJC. Is it you Steve or is it Simon, as Lesagian thought? In any case, I don't see where Carlip has weighed in on the Le Sage wave model - please enlighten. As for Poincare, he didn't consider the case of mass formation as a sink for the wave energy. You'll have to show us your calculations. Your point on drag is valid. This is a problem that needs to be overcome in a wave model. Solutions are out there, however; I gave one in my second paper in PG. To sum things up here, you're trying to generalize to the conclusion that all Le Sage wave models are inadmissible, and by extension also mass formation in EE, when the real picture is that a complete wave Le Sage model has yet to appear. It's like trying to rule out all string theories or dark matter theories since none has passed muster so far. I'm not claiming that mass increase does occur in EE via a wave model, only that there are efforts ongoing to show this. Actually, I don't personally favour mass increase at this point.MRE 21:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Do you really think waves don't undergo aberration? I suggest you take this up with your co-author Dr. Van Flandern. He'll explain to you that electromagnetic waves emanating from the Sun (for example) very definitely undergo aberration, whereas the force of gravity does not. I honestly have never encountered anyone before who claimed that waves are somehow exempt from aberration. I suspect this belief of yours is not widely held. Wikipedia policy says that if an idea or theory is believed by only one individual or a very small number of individuals, it does not belong in Wikipedia. Accordingly, I think we need at least one reputable reference for the idea of "waves being converted to new mass" before we include it in the article. (Let's leave aside your own book, which I think you ought not lobby for, and whose repute has been challenged. As the Wiki policy says, if an idea really warrants inclusion, there should be no difficulty finding independent corroborating references. On the other hand, if Pusing Gravity really is the ONLY source for this, then I think it should not be included in this article.) SJC1 02:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course electromagnetic waves are subject to aberration effects, but that is hardly the end of it. The requirement is to incorporate this into the final model, just as one needs to overcome the drag effect, etc. It is a tall order, but people are working on it. I have an approach to the aberration and drag problems, but as you and others have pointed out often, it's what's in the journal literature that matters here. For historical precedents for the idea conversion of waves to mass in expanding Earth theory we have a long list. Usually in the past terms like "ether" or "fields" are used, as in Hilgenberg's idea of planets acting as "ether sinks". Some of this history is discussed in the book "Why Expanding Earth?". Given that Dietmar also prefers the shortened section here, however, I'll not insist on this inclusion.MRE 14:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I doubt very seriously that it is Dr. Carlip. He would not have demonstrated the gross ignorance of saying

"According to Stowe's model, the energy absorbed from the ultramundane flux by a spherical body of radius r and mass M is 2GMr/u, where G is Newton's gravitational constant and u is an attenuation coefficient for the body. Hence the absorbed energy is independent of the speed and density of the ultramundane flux, directly proportional to the radius of the body, and inversely proportional to the attenuation coefficient."

Seeing that G = φμ2 and therefore one needed to divide G by μ to replicate the formula given yet not having the foresight to realize the flux term φ must incorporate both the speed and density of the ultramundane particles to exist at any value all. In the framework of Le Sage's model G is the product of the current situation and exist because of the physical value of the terms that define it. It is not a magical constant ordained by God. He certain would have also realized that the power flux Ψ is also defined by the mean speed (c) squared, thus Ψ / c2 must, by its very definition, be a constant. No, SJC1 we see here appears to be so blinded by his predjuices that he gives the material only a superficial dismissal glance, not thinking beyond that fact knowing already it must be wrong. I seriously doubt Dr. Carlip would let himself fall into that category. Therefore I think we're just seeing FixWiki dressed up in his nice suit, which is beginning to look a little thread bare. LeSagian 23:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to recap, your user page says the energy absorption rate is E = 2quMr and you also say that Newton's gravitational constant is G = qu^2. It follows that E = 2GMr/u. I still think it would be useful for this to be presented in the article, to give readers a fuller appreciation of the merits of the Pushing Gravity book. It would also be useful to include Stowe's defense of this "analysis" above. Nothing I could say would more effectively make my point.SJC1 02:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
And what point would that be except that you haven't any bloody inkling of what the terms φ and μ are and represent within the basic Le Sage model (and not any one's version of it)? LeSagian 02:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the expression for the heat absorption rate that you presented in Pushing Gravity was something like 2GM/(rc^2), so it was inversely proportional to the radius of a planet, whereas in the expression on your User page here is 2GMr/u, so it is directly proportional to the radius of the planet. In addition to the fact that these disagree with each other, I think neither of them can be correct, because in the weak field limit the coupling between the flux and the planet should depend only on the mass of the planet, not on its size (just as the force must depend only on the mass, not the size, which is why Le Sage theory requires such pourous matter, to ensure that the size of an object doesn't affect the interaction). Discrepancies like this cause me to distrust the Pushing Gravity reference, and to seek other corroborating sources for any information that is taken from that source.SJC1 13:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, to be succinct, you're wrong. The published derivation by Stowe & Mingst in PG specifically and very clearly deals with a power flux [watt/m^2] (which anyone who had bothered to look would know) and the calculation on my page solves for total deposited energy. First, power is not energy, and second, any flux has to integrated over the total enclosed surface to get the total. When one does that the results are the same. It is very clear that if one uses the PG formula kM/r [watts/m^2] and multiples by area one will get kMr (ignoring the geometric scalars) just as seen on my page. It does not matter if k is Ψ2G/c2 or 2G/μ. If you want to discuss this topic further do so on my talk page since what's there is not relevant here. However, given that Stowe & Mingst analysis clearly demonstrates that, linked to actual measurements, there is a strong observable correlation to both heating and drag. Since both has been long predicted by Le Sage's theory and so prominantly used to its dismiss its viablility, that fact is highly relavant to this article. That is, unless someone can clearly show a logical or mathematical flaw in their published presentation. Is the one? LeSagian 23:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
You haven't addressed the objection. Even after surmounting the challenges posed by your peculiar notation and ambiguous syntax, neither the energy absorption rate nor the power per unit area nor any other measure of the energy transfer can possibly be proportional (directly or inversely) to the RADIUS of the body. Do you understand this? In order to make the force of gravity (in the weak limit) strictly proportional to the mass (and the not the size) of an object, the elementary entities must be so sparsely distributed that each one is essentially "all by itself", not significantly shaded by another other entity, so it doesn't matter whether they are spread out over a large region or a small region (as long as you stay in the weak limit where gravity obeys Newton's laws). The interaction with the flux is purely dependent on the number of these elementary entities (and hence proportional to the mass), NOT on the size of the body. In your equations, the result is either directly or inversely proportional to the RADIUS of the body (depending on whether you express it in terms of power or power-per-area). This is quite obviously not correct, and it explains why your calculations yield values that are 10 or 12 orders of magnitude different than what EVERY other person has ever calculated. If you correct your analysis to account for all the requirements of gravity (e.g., the absence of appreciable shielding, the strict dependence on mass, the absence of appreciable drag, the absence of aberration), you will find that the speed and density of the flux is constrained to be incredibly high, and the bombardment will incinerate ordinary matter in a fraction of a second. If, on the other hand, you simply take a certain (very small) amount of heat flow as your starting point, and back out the force of gravity that is produced by a model with that heat flow, you will find that it is nowhere near the actual force of gravity.SJC1 00:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, I can't see too many good reasons for the changes that were made to my earlier section "Connections to geology". If there aren't strenuous objections I will revert to my earlier wording, possibly amending to "Connections to geology and astronomy", with an Arp reference.MRE 18:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I strenuously object. The changes made by D.heinz are a great improvement. They should not be reverted back to the old "Connections to geology" version. SJC1 19:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
What was your thinking here Dietmar?MRE 21:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
My intention was to shorten the passage, particularly that about earth expansion. For example, in earlier versions a section about the "resurgance of expanding Earth theory" and Bruce Heezen was included - but I see no reason to describe the theory in an article about Le Sage gravity so detailed - it would be better to create a seperate article called Earth expansion. By the way, the connection to earth expansion is described in the current version detailed enough. So, the passage now seems accurate to me, therefore I don't think we should go back to the earlier "connections to geology" version. --D.H 12:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Mention of Heezen was included to remind the majority of readers that expanding Earth was an active theory just a few decades ago. However, your edits have been mostly good ones and so I'm happy not to press the point. You're also right that there should be a proper EE page.MRE 14:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The Stowe/Mingst Reference

It looks like there is some contention over how best to represent some of the "recent activity", so some discussion may be useful to reach agreement. Just to get the discussion off on the right foot, here are a few helpful quotes from Wikipedia policy:

... ideas stemming from one individual who is not an authority, or from a small group of such individuals, should either go to "articles for deletion" (because they "fail the test of confirmability", not because they are necessarily false), or should be copyedited out.
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
"No original research" is one of three content-governing policies. The other two are "Neutral point of view" and "Verifiability"... These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. SJC1
In reporting who, what, when, where, & how are often quoted are the essential formula for a topic. In the Recent Activity section the Stowe & Mingst work in fact is correctly & succintly reported. On page 191 of the reference 34 we find that the absorbed power is simply assumed to be the impingent flux minus the exiting flux. It is then simply assumed that, for the weak limit where the (1 − e − b) => b and b = 2GM / rc2 the absorbed power flux Ψa is simply the total power flux Ψ times the factor b. Thus the result is proportional to the mass of the body M, and inversely proportional to both the radius r and the speed of the corpuscules c squared. Increase the mass (leaving the radius constant) and one increases the power absorption, decrease the radius, increase the power absorption, increase the corpuscular speed, decrease the power absorption. This can be very clearly seen in the published formula Ψa = Ψ2GM / rc2. If one assumes that the term c, G, and Ψ are constants the one can group the constants as K and write Ψa = KM / r. Nowhere that I see does the authors claim (or does their work suggest) that the power absorbed is independent of the speed and density of the ultramundane flux. In fact, they simply assume that Ψa is the measured 6.7 watts/m^3 net for the mass & radius of Jupiter and solve for the cooresponding value for Ψ. They then simply assume this value of Φ is correct since it matches an actual observation. They then solve for K and then use it to compute other outputs according to published estimated masses and radii. In other words, SJC1 version is total inaccurate and not consistent with the actual published facts. The fact is, you, by your personal {POV]] do not like the fact that this particular analysis yields results that closely match observations, both for heating and the anomalous drag observed. The very same flux value, derived by matching the formula to observation just happens to fit. LeSagian 21:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
So, do you totally disavow the "derivation" of the heat transfer presented on your Wikipedia user page? If so, then I will disregard that, and attempt to succinctly characterize what you've described above. What I think needs to be conveyed to the reader is what is fundamentally new or different about the Stowe/Mingst model as opposed to everyone else's understanding of Lesage models. I assumed the derivation of heat transfer in Lesage models on your Wikipedia user page was at least slightly similar to the model you put in Pushing Gravity, but if you tell me they have nothing at all in common, and everyone should disregard the nonsense on your user page, then that's fine. This still leaves us with the fact that the results quoted in the article are many orders of magnitude different than anyone else has ever calculated, so there is clearly something profoundly different about the Mingst/Stowe model... I'm just trying to discern what that is, and then state it in the article. Seem reasonable?SJC1 23:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so according to the model of Stowe and Mingst, the absorbed energy per unit mass is inversely proportional to the “radius” r of the mass and inversely proportional to the square of the corpuscle speed c. It’s good that we’ve clarified this, because every other “researcher” into Lesage gravity has understood that the heat problem gets worse as the speed of the corpuscles increases, whereas Stowe informs us that it actually gets better! If the speed of the corpuscles was infinite, there would be no heat transfer at all, whereas if the ultramundane corpuscles weren’t moving at all, the transferred heat would be infinite. No wonder their answers differ from everyone else’s by 20 orders of magnitude! As for the “radius” dependency, it is flagrantly inconsistent with the requirement (in the weak limit) for the interaction with the flux to be purely proportional to the mass, independent of the volume (because the force depends only on the mass, not the volume). So this is excellent… we have clarified things greatly. I will summarize this in some new proposed words for the Stowe/Mingst model in the “Recent Activity” section. Just a few words should suffice to enable each reader to assess the merits of this “research” for themselves.

In summary, the theory of Stowe and Mingst is not a theory of gravity at all, because it does not even come close to reproducing the force of gravity on material objects, nor does it attempt to do so. It is simply a theory of heat absorption and drag induced by some unseen flux, and the formulas it assumes for both of these effects are completely inconsistent with conventional laws of physics (not to mention rational thought). For example, according to Stowe and Mingst, the energy of a particle goes down as its speed increases, and vice versa. But to complete the picture, we need the Stowe/Mingst formula for the drag on an object. Can anyone supply this? Hopefully it’s as amusing as their formula for the energy. SJC1 06:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Some Authors (like SJC1) will never accept the fact, that PG-Authors like Lesagian (Stowe/Mingst) are presenting their own theories in the article. Partially, I agree with SJC1. Therefore I suggest we replace the entire section with a shorter one, which shall contain only some links and references to "recent activities". --D.H 13:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
That seems like a reasonable approach. My only suggestion concerns the final reference, which points to one particular section in the book "Pushing Gravity". That book actually contains a large number of different Lesage models, including those of Popescu-Adamut, Slabinski, Kierein, Edwards, Kokus, and so on. It would be more representative and NPOV to cite ALL of these, by simply giving a reference to the entire book. I suggest replacing the last citation with the words:
A variety of Lesage models are discussed by Edwards, et al [ref: "Pushing Gravity", 2002, Apeiron.]
This would avoid the appearance of singling out any particular chapters or models for special mention.SJC1 18:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
This is an interesting and IMO astute suggestion. I advise letting a little time pass (like a day or two) to be sure that noone objects (or to hash it out if someone does). However, I think that pointing people who are interested in the current thoughts and ideas on this topic to PG as a whole is a very good idea. --EMS | Talk 21:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The issue is less that MIngst and Stowe are presenting their own theory as it is that Wikipedia may be acting as a direct secondary source for it. I have not minded it being mentioned, but in recent edits it has been described in detail, and that does give it undue wieght. Overall, I agree with D.H and SJC1 that something needed to be done about the "Recent activity" as it had gotten to be way too big and detailed. The current form may be too short, but there needs to be a new consensus about what that section is to accomplish and how before it is expanded again. --EMS | Talk 14:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I made some adjustments to the last section. I took out the Arp ref, as he does not actually discuss Le Sage in Seeing Red. Also it was not accurate to say that Maxwell and Poincare are mainly responsible for the loss of interest in Le Sage. It was mostly GR that caused this.MRE 19:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Why Le Sage theory is not considered viable

The problems with Le Sage theory have nothing to do with general relativity, per se. Also, Le Sage's theory was never popular or mainstream, even prior to general relativity. As Darwin said in 1905 "Suffice it to say that no scientist believes Le Sage's theory affords the true path" (or words to that effect). This is a fair appraisal, echoed by many others of the time. The only two notable individuals in the 19th century to even remotely advocate it were the partners Thomson & Tait, and even they only toyed with the idea. Frankly, prior to general relativity, the mainstream theory of gravity was the theory of Newton/Cotes and action at a distance. That's the theory that was "eclipsed" by general relativity. Le Sage's theory was never regarded as viable by mainstream physicists. By the 20th century the reasons could be expressed in clear and empirically based objections, but in previous centuries the reasons were mainly due to the realization by most physicists that Le Sage theory just doesn't make sense, and serves only to turn a mystery into a mystery squared. There's no need for the article to go into all these reasons, because they are only of historical interest now, but suffice it to say that Le Sage theory was never the accepted or leading or even prominent theory. You can assess this by looking at the physics literature from the 19th and early 20 centuries. Le Sage is barely mentioned, because frankly it was regarded as ridiculous. The point is, it is NOT correct to say that general relativity was responsible for loss of interest in Le Sage theory. The level of interest in Le Sage theory is about the same today as it ever - which is to say, extremely low.SJC1 21:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's simply not true, that Le Sage's Theory "was regarded as rediculous". Why do you think, that J.J. Thomson described the theory as one of only two theories, which where possibly compatble with the electon-theory? Or why Poincare has given the theory so much space in his "Science and Method"? Or why it was the only "machinery" of gravitation, which was mentioned by Feynman in his lectures? Or why the theory was mentioned and critizised by Maxwell in various papers? Or why the theory was described in two seperate editions (1875,1911) of the Encyclopedia Britannica? For Example, in Germany the theory had attracted the interest of C. Isenkrahe, P. Drude or D. Hilbert. So the interest in the theory certainly was not "extremely low". (Particularly between 1870 and 1911). --D.H 09:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Dietmar has it right. Le Sage was very much part of the story in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Here is a reference which covers the period - Van Lunteren, F.H., 1991. Framing Hypotheses: Conceptions of Gravity in the 18th and 19th Centuries, PhD thesis (Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht). I quoted a passage from it in my historical article in PG. Perhaps it would be better to say that it was Maxwell who undermined Le Sage most, not with his Atom article but with his electromagnetic theory which required no ether. By 1900 ether theories were definitely on the wane.MRE 15:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I won't rule on this dispute, but do think that this tension between the views is a good thing. I had never heard of this theory before I came to Wikipedia, and agree with SJC1 that its study seems to have always been something of a backwater in physics. That is not to say that it did not see a heyday in the late 19th century, but it obviously has always taken a back seat to another theory, be it gravity or GR. My request is that the pro-Le Sage editors work with SJC1 to create a balanced and reasonable POV for this article. If nothing else, it is time to get that {{POV}} tag resolved and removed one way or the other. As "Fixwiki" is long gone, I propose that SJC1 become its new "owner", meaning the he/she is the one who will decide when it can go. --EMS | Talk 20:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Le Sage, Majorana and Radzievskii

The section on gravitational shielding was a bit garbled. I've restored some of the original discussion concerning Majorana and Radzievskii. It is only slightly longer than before. Personally, I don't see a need to be have all equally sized subsections here; it's an encyclopedia article, not a textbook.MRE 16:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It's true that the section on gravitational shielding had gotten garbled, but I thought it was moving in the right direction. The essential content is simply to explain why gravitational shielding of some amount is implicit in a Le Sage theory, and then point out that if there was any appreciable shielding, we would find that (for example)
"The attaction of the sun for the earth would be relatively weaker than that of the sun for the moon, and a very appreciable inequality in the motion of the moon would result. We must therefore conclude, if we adopt Le Sage's theory, that the total surface area of the spherical molecules of which the earth is composed is, at the most, a ten millionth part of the total surface of the earth." (Poincare)
In other words, astronomical observations place extremely low bounds on how much gravitational shielding could possibly exist. It might also be worth mentioning that we all have an excellent opportunity to test for gravitational shielding, because we each experience a TOTAL solar eclipse every single day of our lives, and the sun is eclipsed by a body MUCH more massive (and much close) than the Moon... namely, the Earth. It's been shown that, even if there was some way of maintaining inertial mass proportional to gravitational mass (which of course there is not in Le Sage theory), any appreciable shielding would result in the tides on the noon side of the Earth being hundreds of feet higher than on the midnight side.
Now, it so happens that certain individuals have become fixated on playing with pendulums during the VASTLY less impressive eclipses when the tiny little distant Moon interposes itself, and since this is a ridiculous way of trying to measure gravitational absorption in the first place, and is subject to all kinds of uncontrolled variables, the results tend to be uninformative. But we could point to, for example, the paper of Unnikrishnan et al debunking the silly claims about the 1997 eclipse. But the most important point is that by all reasonable means of determining whether or not there is any gravitational absorption, including techniques that are many orders of magnitude more sensitive and controlled than Majorana in the 1920s, the results are consistently that there is NO appreciable gravitational shielding.
Indeed, the opposite is actually true. It has been verified experimentally that the binding energy by which two masses are coupled together actually gravitates, so that the combined gravity is MORE (not less) than the sum of the individual gravities of the constituients.
My point is, this is not a controversial area in the real world of science. The absence of shielding (i.e., the universal coupling) of gravitation is a VERY well established fact. It is one of the BEST established facts in all of science. I think it would be an embarrasment for this Wikipedia article to present some lame pseudo-scientific historical narrative, trying to suggest that this is an open question, filled with unexplained results. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So, I think we should stick very close to the scientific consensus, and not dwell on the fully debunked results of one individual from over 80 years ago, neglecting all the mountain of evidence of much higher quality. And really, proponents of Le Sage gravity should agree with me, because results of the kind reported by Majorana would be just as inconsistent with any viable Le Sage theory as with any other viable theory. Let's just make this section short and sweet, referencing Poincare and Unnikrishnan, with a brief mention of Majorana just for historical interest, and be done with it. Then if someone wants to write a whole Wikipedia article on Majorana (which, by the way, is not THE Majorana, but the father), they can start a new article. SJC1 03:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
You've made a lot of points here, most of them incorrect. First, let's dismiss Poincare's statement as nonsensical. If there is gravitational shielding, then the Sun's attraction on the Moon will be proportionately greater than on the Earth. This is because a greater amount of mass is shielded in the Sun-Earth system than in the Sun-Moon system. This is where Majorana's terms "true mass" and "apparent mass" come in handy.
[From SJC1 - Note that the "stronger" was my transcription error. As you know (assuming you have read Poincare), he actually said "weaker". SJC1 22:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)]
In P2 you say there is no way inerial mass and gravitational mass can be the same in Le Sage gravity. No way. The origins of inertia and of gravity will stem from the same ultimate source. The most reasonable assumption is that they are equal and that is what Radzievskii assumed to bebunk Russell's argument. Now for using the Earth alone as shield re the Sun, keep in mind also Radzievskii's proof that the degree of shielding is the same when an object is placed between two masses as when it is put on one side of both. Russell's argument about the tides being 300 times greater on one side than the other was done away with. The shielding is the same for an object on Earth at noon and at midnight. (The fact that you don't recognize this supports my contention that this material be retained in the article). The shielding will be less at other times, when the Sun, the Earth and the object of interest are not in line, and thus the weight of the object should be greater, but then you need to factor in other forces as well (as with the tides). It's a complicated problem obviously. Also, don't forget Bottlinger's calculations. They indicated shielding but were later ignored in favour of other interpretations.
The statement about playing with pendulums is itself silly. This is one of the few ways we can get at the problem. The indication of shielding in the Chinese experiment is a valid interpretation. I discussed this in my historical paper in PG.
Your statement about binding energy gravitating does not sound right. The mass of a helium nucleus is less per nucleon than hydrogen. So what are you saying, the helium is heavier per nucleon?
The idea that this is not a controversial area is ridiculous. It is an area that has been tested repeatedly for decades. The answers have been mostly (but not all) negative (see Adamut's papers). In addition, the apparatus used is nowhere near what Majorana used. No one has used equipment on Majorana's scale and having no electrical components, like Majorana's. Maybe when someone tries to repeat Majorana's experiment at scale we can know something more, but for now we need to keep open minds. In any case, whether you agree with what I'm saying or not, the fact is that the Majorana story is part of the HISTORY of Le Sage's theory. You can't leave it out. And to let Wikipedia readers think the story is closed would be to mislead them completely.
On the point that Majorana's high attenuation factor would cause difficulties for Le Sage if true, well that could be so. Tom VF finds a much lower factor, as do others such as Adamut. The fact is, we don't know yet what it is, same as we don't know what is the source of dark matter (or if dark matter exists). What's the point of writing an encyclopedia article as if we know all the answers?
Your approach would merely weaken the article.MRE 20:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that we simply base the section on current published works from reputable sources. I've posted my proposal for how the section should look (in my opinion). I've actually included a lot more on the fringe science claims than I think is really justified, so I'd be quite happy to ditch the second paragraph of my proposed section, but there may be some benefit in mentioning those things, if only because it gives the opportunity to point to the de-bunkings. SJC1 21:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
A suggestion usually precedes an action. Following your example I suggest that we remove the misleading statements that Le Sage gravity is in violation of the equivalence principle. The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass is as necessary in Le Sage gravity as any other gravitational theory. The reasons WHY they are equal are no better spelled out (as yet) in Le Sage models than they are in GR. Given that, your section had to be reworded. As for your generous statement about fringe claims, keep in mind that no one has ever found fault with Q. Majorana's methods. An experimental result must be kept on the table until repeated experiments either support it or invalidate it. In Majorana's case no one tried such a large-scale experiment ever again.MRE 22:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Your proposed version seems designed to say that the evidence about gravitational shielding is "inconclusive", but when placed in juxtaposition with the Majorana claims this is a very misleading statement. All the reputable sources agree that upper bounds on the possible amount of gravitational shielding have been established by various means, some involving astronomical observations and others involving terrestial measurements, and there is no controversy about the the magnitude of these upper bounds. See the references provided. These upper bounds are many orders of magnitude smaller than what Majorana reported. So the evidence is not at all "inconclusive" about Majorana's claims. Nor is it "inconclusive" about the solar eclipse claims. Now, if you want to assert that the results are inconclusive about whether gravitational shielding is actually ZERO, that's certainly true, because an upper bound is simply an upper bound... but when it has a value like 10^-24 it is safe to say that it's a VERY small effect... assuming it exists at all.
In the first sentences of my proposed version I say very clearly that, in order for a Le Sage theory to be viable (i.e., consistent with all astronomical and terrestial measurements) it must have a VERY small amount of shielding. No one (as far as I know) disagrees with this statement. EVERYONE who has ever written about Le Sage theory has conceeded this point and taken it into account (except for you and some of your fellow Pushing Gravity co-authors). Really, what more is there to say? The only question, from the Le Sage standpoint, is how much shielding can possible be allowed. So if you want to argue about what upper bound has been conclusively established so far, then fine, you should state what value think is consistent with all the facts. From the reputable publications, I think it's clear that the upper bound is no bigger than about 10^-15 and probably more like 10^-24. Poincare thought it was no bigger than about 10^-7, and that was enough to imply vaporization of the planets in a fraction of a second.
It is simply false to claim that the evidence is inconclusive as to whether shielding might actually be bigger than 10^-15. The reputable reference I provided make this quite clear. What you are trying to do is the old fringe-science dodge of clinging eternally to one report (typically from a biased researcher with his own pet theory like Majorana) by saying that those results are not refuted unless exactly the same apparatus in exactly the same circumstances is repeated in exactly the same way... which of course is never possible. ("You can never cross the same river twice.") This is recognized as an anti-scientific ploy.
As for your claim that the Earth eclipses of the Sun don't really provide any opportunity to test for shielding (because it doesn't matter whether the shield is between or outside), I would point out that at dawn and dusk the Earth is not in front or behind us, relative to the sun, but is beside us. Hence, the vast variations in tidal effects, etc.
By the way, your comment about the binding energy is off point, because although helium and hydrogen drop to lower energy levels when they fuse, we have examples at the other end of the periodic table (uranium, plutonium) such that when fission takes place the split parts have less mass in total than they had when combined. Eovotos experiments on all these substances confirm that the extra binding energy contributes to the gravitational mass precisely as much as it contributes to the inertial mass.
Finally, your belief that gravitational shielding is compatible with the equivalence principle is simply bizarre. No reputable scientist who has ever studied Le Sage theory has disputed the obvious fact that the theory implies some degree of violation of the equivalence principle. The INERTIAL attributes of both the corpuscles and ordinary matter are aprior postulates of Le Sage theory. When your esteem collegue Buonomano says that none of these particles has any momentum inherently, and they acquire these properties by interacting with each other, he fails to explain why the impact of particles with no momentum should have any pushing effect at all. That kind of thing is so obviously specious that it deserves no mention in the article (in my opinion). If some insist on mentioning it, then it should be described in sufficient detail that the readers can judge form themselves the caliber of thought that it represents.SJC1 00:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll reply paragraph by paragraph. P1. Part of the problem here is due to trying to cram the history of the topic under a small "prediction". I would be happy to put the section of shielding into its own proper section, though hat the history can be addressed fully. Again, later attempts to find shielding reduced the uper limit, but, again, they were different experiments. It's hardly a dodge to ask that an experiment be repeated, is it? They could repeat the experiment using the Zurich apparatus, but have thus far not done so. And the solar eclipse experiments are very much inconclusive. We have the Wang et al Chinese experiment (similar results found by the same team later in Africa). There is no agreed on interpretation yet. You can read Chris Duif's review article on this.
Not sure where you get the idea that I do not advocate for shielding. At this point in time, given the Chinese experiment and similar ones, I do. For magnitude, I can only say 10^-11 to 10^-18, which covers the main range of reported values.
The situation at dawn and dusk is what I was referring to. At those times the shielding effect is lost, but then other inertial forces, as witnessed in the tides, still must be factored in. Point is, Russell's criticism is baseless.
On binding energy, I would also expect this to hold for Le Sage's model.
Why would equivalence not hold in a Le Sage model. You're simply overlooking that the origins of inertial mass are not well understood in any theory. I fall in with those that think that it is due to gravitational interactions with the distant stars (eg, Tryon, Jordan). Consequently, if inertial mass owes to gravity, than it should be subjected to the same amount of shielding as gravitational mass. I think what you're doing is basing all your arguments on Le Sage's theory circa 1880. You're not allowing for the simple, necessary adjustments that the theory has to make to adapt to changing knowledge. As a result, your analysis tends to be a bit out-of-date and not fitting for the article. At the same time, it's obvious you're well-read on the topic.MRE 02:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

When you refer to "the Chinese experiments" surely you don't mean Wang, et al, and the 1997 study that was debunked in the Physical Review D paper I provided?

Overall, I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here. Look, Newton's law is F=GMm/r^2, meaning if you double the mass you exactly double the force, so any theory of gravity that reproduces Newton's law to the level of precision necessary to maintain consistency with all the astronomical and terrestial successes of that theory MUST not have more than an extremely small amount of gravitational shielding... and the allowable amount of MUCH less (by several orders of magnitude) than what Majorana reported. So the whole historical account of Majorana's work is really a pointless red herring for this article. In fact, ALL the silly things you are trying to discuss are pointless, because the astronomical tests place limits on the feasible amount of shielding that are many orders of magnitude smaller than can possibly be sensed in any known terrestial experiment, including eclipse observations. We're talking here about TEN ORDERS of MAGNITUDE. So my question is, what on earth is the point of saying "the results are inconclusive"? What sort of "conclusion" are you seeking?

The simple facts are these: In order for a Le Sage theory (or ANY theory) of gravity to be viable, it cannot possess a degree of shielding that is presently detectable by any astronomical observations nor of course by the best known terrestial observations (which are much less precise). This is because, to the precision that we can presently measure, there is no observable shielding effects. A wide variety of observations and experiments have been employed in an effort to place bounds on the maximum possible shielding. Some of these methods have very poor precision and very poor repeatability. Others are incredibly accurate and perfectly repeatable. The latter consistently show no discernable shielding, as do the astronomical observations that establish the absence of shielding to much greater precision. Don't take my word for it, read it in any of a large number of reputable sources, a few of which I've already provided.

I don't follow what you are saying about dusk versus noon not being a valid context for testing shielding effects. I thought you were disputing this because it doesn't matter whether the Earth is in front or behind us, we will get the same shielding effect... My point is that sometimes the Earth is BESIDE us, so every day we get the full variation from no shielding all the way to maximum shielding of the sun's gravity... and yet there is no discernable effect on the tides or anything else. And this should represent FAR more shielding variation than occurs during a solar eclipse.

Coupling of gravitation with binding energy is not consistent with any Lesage theory. The fact that you would expect it to be consistent is neither here nor there. By the way, it has also been shown that gravitation couples with KINETIC energy. No rational and intellectually honest person could possibly claim that this is consistent with a Le Sage theory, because any such theory must have a flux that is moving so rapidly that all ordinary motions are essentially negligible so that the interaction in independent of speed (to avoid drag). Hence it cannot be claimed that such a flux would somehow couple with the motion of particles. It is absolutely logically self-contradictory.

I already explained why the equivalence principle doesn't hold in a Le Sage model. Again, Le Sage theory explains gravity as the result of the -impulses- to ordinary matter by ultramundane flux. The word "impulse" signifies the imparting of momentum. The flux imparts momentum to ordinary matter, and of course ordinary matter responds in accord with the laws of mechanics for inertial matter. If the ultramundane flux has no momentum to begin with, then the modus operendi of Le Sage theory ceases to exist. It simply is not rational to argue that gravity arises from inertia, and then claim that inertia arises from gravity. It's a shell game. What you're advocating is not just anti-scientific, it is anti-rational. You're certainly entitled to hold irrational views, but I don't think you should try to put them into Wikipedia science articles. SJC1 03:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Unnikrishnan et al's interprertation is but one. It can hardly be said to be the last. (BTW, your link to the article is actually to a different paper)I gave another interpretation of the Chinese experiment in PG.
As for my point, I'm giving the best version of the history of this topic that I can. Your approach is merely to minimize any of the results which tentatively point in the Le Sage/Majorana direction. Don't bother using Poincare's outdated analysis to give your countless orders of magnitude. I've already indicated that the shielding factor is somewhere between Majorana's value and 10^-18. No one has yet set an upper limit lower than this value, so what's your issue? The problem needs to be approached from many directions to nail down the value, or to find a limit so low as to be effectively zero.
On the kinetic energy, binding energy and all these energies (including gravitational potential energy), this is all conceptual work in progress in Le Sage models. You can point out difficulties for Le Sage models if you won't, but you can't just rule them all out in a stroke.
You want to rely on astronomical observations rather than terrestrial, but it is only in the lab that this problem can be finally resolved. There are too many other variables potentially masking the screening effect in astronomy. Think about the Pioneer anomaly for one. As well, as I mentioned, many who are writing on this topic still don't get the idea that shielding is the same whether an object is between two gravitating masses or on one side of both, as Radzievskii pointed out. Do you get it?
I followed the Unnikrishnan & Gillies argument on the Earth being beside us at dusk and dawn, etc. As I recall, their new limit for the shielding factor obtained in this way was 10^-14. That's within the range of values I talked about.
Your approach is way too heavy-handed and detrimental to the article.MRE 17:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you're confusing "detrimental to the article" with "detrimental to your personal POV". To give just one example, Bottlinger at one time thought that certain lunar observations suggested possible gravitational shielding, but then just 2 years later Bottlinger himself explained why his earlier suggestion was not warranted, based on an improved analysis. So the question is, what purpose does it serve this article to say "Bottlinger pointed out evidence for shielding, but it was later attributed to other causes"? You have obviosuly written the entire section in just this way, pointing out momentary claims that were later withdrawn, but phrasing them all in such a way that the claims are given as much or more weight than the retractions, by "fuzzing" the resolutions. It's clear that you are desperately trying to promote your own non-mainstream POV in this article. Just look at the discussion above, where you have grudgingly conceeded every single point I've made, and yet you continue to claim that "some other effect may kick in", and somehow 2+2 will be made to equal 5, even though you admit that it appears to equal 4 at the moment, but you assure me that, even as we speak, people are working on ways to make it equal 5.
You say I'm trying to exclude any content that "may tentatively point in the Lesage direction", but that misses the point. None of the Bottlinger or Majorana or Allias or the Chinese stuff points in the Lesage direction. If any of these findings had been valid, they would DISprove Lesage theory, as well as Newton's theory, and every other viable theory of gravity, because they are inconsistent with EVERY viable theory. So, even from your determined POV, all that material is pointless.
I think perhaps the difficulty with the shielding section is that you would like to present a detailed history of every false alarm, every erroneous judgement that was later corrected, and every unsubstantiated claim, and every little thing having to do with this history of searching for gravitational shielding. But this is really tangential to an article on Lesage theory. I suggest you write a separate historical article on the subject of gravitational shielding.
You say "one cannot rule out all Lesage theories at a stroke", but Poincare did just that. In order to be consistent with the lack of aberration (regardless of whether you are talking about a particle or wave theory) the speed of the flux must be far greater than the speed of light... which means you are no longer talking about physics as we know it, because the flux must convey momentum, and there is no such thing as superluminal momentum according to the basic laws of mechanics. You're certainly entitled to dream up completely new laws of physics, disregarding the conflict with empirical reality, but you shouldn't promote your own novel Alice-in-Wonderland POV in Wikipedia science articles.
I provided a version of the shielding section in which EVERY statement is solidly referenced to a reputable source, and it gives a clear and complete review of shielding, including the quantitative lower bounds that have been established, and including the most recent that shows the limit is within the tolerance of zero. I think my version is NPOV, whereas yours is strongly POV. SJC1 19:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Pointless debate, Fixwiki. Our positions are fixed and unresolvable.MRE 03:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I think, SJC1's version is useful - at least within the historical context (Laplace,Poincare). --D.H 11:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
How useful is it with respect to his statement that the equivalence principle restricts the degree of possible shielding in Le Sage gravity? Where are the historical references for this idea? By contrast, Radzievskii had incorporated the requirement of equivalence into Le Sage gravity as early as 1960. The version is inaccurate as it stands now. It recalls Fixwiki's earlier attempt to rule out Le Sage gravity with the argument that gravity itself gravitates.MRE 17:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Multiple references (from reputable sources) for the obvious fact that gravitational shielding violates the equivalence principle are given in the current article. For example, the review article of Bertolami et al begins with the words "The possibility that matter can shield gravity is not predicted by modern theories of gravity, but it is a recurrent idea and it would cause a violation of the equivalence principle test." Of course, every other reputable scientist who has ever considered Le Sage theory has recognized the same thing (see Fatio, Newton, Huygens, Le Sage, Euler, Laplace, Maxwell, Kelvin, Lorentz, Darwin, Poincare, Feynman, etc.) This is precisely the reason that ordinary matter is required to be so pourous, in order to make inertial mass as nearly equal to gravitational mass as possible, i.e., to minimize the violation of the equivalence principle, at least to the level of precision to which that principle has been empirically established.
As to the empirically verified fact that gravity itself gravitates (as does kinetic energy and all known kinds of potential energy), this too is easily verified from multiple reputable sources. The absence of these important facts is a shortcoming of the article at present. Note, for example, that Steve Carlip has published on this subject, and lists it among the strongest disproofs of Le Sage theory (second only to the fact that Le Sage theory requires superluminal propagation of momentum - in violation of the known laws of mechanics - in order to achieve the lack of aberration). These well-established properties of gravity are even discussed in standard reference text books. The coupling of gravity to kinetic and potential energy is not controversial within the scientific community.SJC1 19:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
The Bertolami et al article has a one-page discussion on shielding starting on p.16. In their discussion they completely mangle Majorana's analysis. Majorana defined "apparent mass" as the mass an object ordinarily has, in its present configuration. He then defined "true mass" to be the mass an object would have if you were to disperse its atoms in space and then measure their cumulative mass. Because of shielding the apparent mass should be less than the true mass. Russell and others argued that the gravitational mass would need to be the same as the inertial mass or the solar system would be unstable. Radzievskii assumed this to be true also in Le Sage gravity. What Bertolami et al do is to label Majorana's apparent mass as the gravitational mass and the inertial mass as the true mass. This leads to a false conclusion, obviously. Majorana never made any such assumption. The bottom line is - inertial mass is also reduced to the same degree in Lesage gravity that inertial mass is. The mechanism keeping this equality in place is unclear, but it is no more clear in GR, etc. Let's not do the gravity gravitating discussion again.MRE 20:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
You're missing the point, which is that gravitational shielding is DE FACTO a violation of the equivalence principle. If general relativity predicted gravitational shielding (which it doesn't), then general relativity would thereby violate the equivalence principle. Likewise, if Lesage gravity predicts gravitational shielding (which it does), then Lesage theory violates the equivalence principle. Now, if someone wants to develop a new theory, one that satisfies the equivalence principle, then that new theory does NOT entail gravitational shielding, because gravitational shielding is a violation of the equivalence principle. This is fully established by the citations in the article from reputable sources.SJC1 01:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Matt - I thought it's a undisputed fact, that most of the Le Sage-type models in the 18th and 19th century were assuming a fundamental difference between heavy and inertial mass. Or more exactly: Gravity is the result of inertia (the inertial motion of the corpuscules), but inertia is not depending on gravity. And I have never heard that one of these former Le Sagean's had proposed, that inertia depends on gravity - so it's evident, that these models are more or less based on a violation of Newton's "equality of heavy and inertial mass". Or to say it in a more modern language: They are violating Einstein's equivalence principle. And exactly that was the reason, why Fatio and Le Sage were forced to postulate an enormours permeability - to make these violation undetectable - at least as long no such violation is measured.
So I think the section should reflect that - and it should also reflect modern views like Radzievskii's and their difference to former Le Sage models. So your are welcome to include his views - and I think it's possible to include his acount within the current version.
PS: I'm sorry, that you plan to limit your comments on this discussion page - I find your statements very interesting. --D.H 19:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I would say it's true that the classical Le Sage models would not attribute inertia to gravity. So the article should reflect that. But time did not stand still and others like Radzievskii noted the requirement for equivalence here. I'll try to get him back in. Thanks.MRE 21:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
If Radzievskii has proposed a theory that satisfies the equivalence principle, then it does not predict gravitational shielding, so it wouldn't be appropriate for the gravitational shielding section. In fact, it's doubtful whether such a theory would even belong in an article on Le Sage gravity, because the whole mechanism by which Le Sage theory "explains" gravitation is shielding. Any theory that doesn't have shielding (shading) can hardly be called a Lesage theory. On the other hand, any theory that DOES have shielding automatically violates the equivalence principle. This has been recognized by EVERY reputable scientist who has ever given any thought to Lesage theory.SJC1 01:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that you have a valid point here, but in Wikipedia the issue is one of what others have to say about the subject, not the editors themselves. I advise either finding some reputable sources for this statement, or letting the matter drop. In an article like this, it is best to let the facts speak for themselves. As-is, I think that this article already does a fine job of that, making it quite clear that Le Sage gravitation is not generally supported today and giving a good sense of why. --EMS | Talk 03:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be some broad misconceptions afoot, and these are exemplified in the article by Bertolami et al. The error seems to be as follows. If we look back at the old Le Sage theories, one can appreciate that the porosity of matter would need to be very high, so that the gravitational mass of a large assemblage of atoms is similar to the inertial mass of the assembly. Historically, the hidden assumption was that the inertial mass of the assemblage is equal to the sum for the atoms taken separately. From the gravitational side, Majorana supposed that the gravitational mass would be diminished in large masses due to self shielding. I don't recall whether he addressed the question of inertial mass, but Russell in any case pointed out that the inertial mass of the assemblage would have to fall too or there would be total chaos in the solar system. The equivalence principle would have to be obeyed. This point was then acknowledged by Radzievskii for Le Sage models. The mechanism why inertial mass would always scale with gravitational mass in Le Sage gravity is open, but it is logical to suppose that inertial mass originates as well in the interactions of the components of matter with the Le Sage particles or waves. Thus reduction of inertial mass would readily follow.

Bertolami et al make a horrible error in equating gravitational mass with Majorana's (and Russell's) apparent mass and inertial mass with his true mass. I think I will take it up with those authors, as it seems it is only a preprint at the moment. I don't think it is a proper ref for the article. Sorry that this is long, but it is a critical point in the article. I think I had it stated better in my original version (before Dietmar's changes).MRE 17:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

PS. I've just edited the section, trying to restore balance. I've left the Bertolami ref in for the time being, pending discussion.128.100.121.41 21:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)MRE 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Discuss the article, not the theory itself

MRE & SJC1 - I seems to me that in the above you are partially arguing about the theory itself. I kindly counsel against that, as it tends to lead to all kinds of uproductive arguments (as you can see in the archives and especially with the #63... anon who later took the user ID "Fixwiki"). The real focus here has to be the article and what is appropriate for it to contain. Once people start arguing over the physical "truth" about Le Sage gravitation things tend to go downhill fast. As best I can tell, this type of model can be tweaked into compliance with existing observation. I won't claim that the result, is elegant, compelling, or in the least supported by Occam's razor, but none-the-less there are Le Sage type theories that are at least claimed to conform to observation around. At the same time, these models are no almost no interest (if not just plain no interest) if the mainstream scientific community.

I know that the theory itself and the needs of the article are intertwined to some extent; but what matters here is what the literature says about this theory, and less so the theory itself. --EMS | Talk 03:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your point and agree that the above discussions are mostly fruitless. I plan to limit my comments in this discussion page to the minimum. The question is how to resolve fundamental differences and there really seems to be no good way in Wikipedia to do that.MRE 17:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that the issue to be resolved is at least somewhat one of presentation, and that your input is needed to achieve this. SJC1 is correct in that Le Sage gravitation is does not outright assume or call for an equivalence of gravitational and inertial masses. At the same time, I get the feeling that equivalence can be modelled in this context, but it requires some tweaking for the model, while in Einstein's theory equivalence is implied in the theory itself. My request is that the two of you not fall into the trap of purely debating the theory, as often occurred with Fixwiki around. The issue now is what Radzievskii came up with, and how that was received. --EMS | Talk 03:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the question of origins of inertia in Le Sage gravity needs a line or two of explanation. It is doubtful whether I can work together profitably with SCJ1 (Fixi) on this, however.
Radzievskii's theory was in Russian and to the extent that there was a reaction to it, it was also in Russia. Recently a book came out there in Russian, whose English translation title is "Searches for a mechanism of gravity" (2004), edited by Michael A. Ivanov and Lev Savrov. It has reprints of two of Radzievskii's papers (and also Evans paper from PG). Not a landslide but also not insignificant. Radzievskii is also notable as co-discoverer of the Yarkovsky-Radzievsky effect. MRE 17:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


Majorana and Russell

Some recent edits to the section on Gravitational shielding have mis-represented the writings of Majorana, Russell, and Radzievskii. First, it's important to recognize that Russell was critiquing Majorana, not Lesage. The fact that Russell presented a disproof of a variable-inertia hypothesis after presenting his disproof of the gravitational shielding hypothesis is not relevant to a discussion of theories (such as Lesage's) that operate by gravitational shielding. Every reputable scientist (several of whom are cited in the article)understands that gravitational shielding violates the equivalence principle. The second part of Russell's paper, in which the hypothesis that both the inertial and the gravitational mass vary due to the presence of other masses, does not entail shielding per se, because shielding is defined as objects exhibiting less gravitational mass than would be expected based on their inertial mass. If the inertial mass is reduced along with the gravitational mass, then it is no longer a "shielding" theory, it is a theory in which inertial mass is no longer conserved, and it actually varies from time to time. (This is worse even than violating conservation of energy.) As Radzievskii says, "Majorana did not insist in his investigations on a concrete physical interpretation of the law of gravitation." That's putting it mildly. But this is all beside the point, because the article is about Lesage theory, which DOES have a concrete physical interpretation... in fact, that's the whole POINT of Lesage theory. The first part of Russell's analysis is the only part that is relevant to Lesage theory.

Second, MRE says Radzievskii defines two different kinds of mass, true and apparent, which (says MRE) are not to be confused with inertial and gravitational mass. However, if one actually consults Radzievskii's paper to see what on Earth he could be talking about, one finds that he defines "true mass" as the inertial mass, and "apparent mass" as the gravitational mass. Radzievskii merely seeks to evade Russell's disproof by proposing toi adopt a theory of gravity whose only known attribute is that it doesn't operate on the principle of Lesage gravity, and then he names this theory "Lesage gravity". If Radz, as a lone voice in the wilderness, is to be mentioned at all in the article, his writing should be conveyed fully enough to let readers evaluate it's merit.

Third, MRE tells us that, in the context of the Radz-Lesage theory (about which we know only that it is NOT a push theory), Radz has satisfactorily answered the second part of Russell's critiqe of Majorana (talk about tangled webs of mythology!) by saying that you get the same Lesage shielding (which of course is irrelevant for a theory like Radz-Lesage which doesn't operate based on shielding) from a barrier regardless of whether the two test objects are on opposite sides of the barrier or the same side - provided only that they are all on the same line of sight. But it has already been pointed out to MRE that the Earth is not always on a line with the test objects (the water and the sun), because at dawn and dusk the Earth is beside us (relative to the Sun). Radz simply overlooks this fact, which of course was crucial to Russell's analysis. So, again, if Radz is to be mentioned at all, it is very important that a full acount be given, so that the merits of his ideas are made plain. SJC1 02:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Matt's version seems appropriate to me - so I think we should leave it so. As he mentioned above, Radzievskii is the co-discoverer of the Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack effect. A online version (but in a very bad condition) of his gravity ideas can be found here. --D.H 09:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Replying briefly to SJC1's 3 points. P1. One could state that, historically, Le Sage's theory implies a violation of the EP, and Majorana does in fact equate his "apparent mass" with the gravitational mass and the "true mass" with the inertial mass. Russell recognized the difficulty and Radzievskii incorporated the correction in Le Sage gravity. His is still a "push theory"; he just acknowledges that EP can't be violated and so inertial mass must be reduced as well. As I've explained, that is logical within Le Sage's theory if we assume that inertia arises with interactions of matter with Le Sage particles or waves. Now to argue that the Majorana discussion is offbase in a Le Sage article is silly. The whole 20th century discussion centred on Majorana's theory rather than the older Le Sage theory. We can't escape this historical entanglement of Le Sage and Majorana.
P2 A ridiculous statement that Radzievskii's theory is not a Le Sage theory because it specifically incorporates EP. Would be happy to expand Radz's views, though, and maybe that is appropriate, given his significant role.
P3 The issue of when the test object (water), the Earth and the Sun are not in line was not a crucial part of Russell's analysis. He only compared the two situations when the three objects were in line.MRE 17:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, that Radzievskii's model is (of course) a Le Sage type theory. It should be possible, to include his views in the section. We should look, what Radz&Kagal actually had written about the second part of Russel's article:
But is it possible to agree with the results of the second part of Russel's article, according to which gravitational absorption on the scale discovered by Majorana is contradicted by the observation data of lunar and solar tides? Let us remember that Russel came to this conclusion starting from the freshly formed Majorana hypothesis of gravitational absorption only under the condition that the attracting bodies are on different sides of the screen. Meanwhile, application of the Lomonosov-Lesage hypothesis which painted a physical picture of gravitational absorption leads, as we will show in the following section, to conclusions which are completely compatible with Majorana's experimental results and with the concepts set forth in the first part of Russel's article, but at the same time, all of the conclusions about tide anomalies lack any kind of basis. Skipping ahead some- what let us say in short that according to the Lomonosov-Lesage hypothesis, the weakening of attraction between two bodies must occur when a screen intersects the straight line joining them, regardless of whether there are gravitational bodies on various sides or on one side of this screen. --D.H 18:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You're both completely mistaken about this, as can easily be verified from Russell's paper. You see, what I've been saying is that it's obvious to any rational person that if the inertial mass AND the gravitational mass both change, then the theory is no longer a "push theory", it is instead a "variable mass" theory, which grossly violates the conservation of mass (which is at least as outlandish as proposing a theory that violates the conservation of energy!). I simply refused to believe that Russell, if he was a genuine scientist, would not have realized this, but you two gentlemen blithly go on claiming that I'm wrong... So... I went to the trouble of acquiring Russell's paper, and what do I find?

After explaining all the reason's why Majorana's shielding theory can't possibly be right, and in fact contradict observation by a factor of 5000, here's what he says:

"But what then becomes of Professor Majorana's long and careful series of experiments? If their result is accepted, it seems necessary to interpret it as showing that the mass of one body... was diminished by the presence of another large mass; that the effect was a true change in the mass (since inertial mass and gravitational mass are all the kinds of mass that we know of); and that it depended on the proximity of the larger mass, and not upon any screening action upon the Earth's gravitation."

I couldn't have said it better myself. So (surprise) we find that Russell was saying EXACTLY what I knew he must have been saying, and what is perfectly self-evident to any rational person.

Furthermore, Russell's paper also shows both of you to be completely wrong (and fully corroborates what I've been assuming he MUST have actually said, since he wasn't an idiot), about the fact that the tidal effects for the mysterious "varying mass" theory can ONLY be evaded by rejecting the "push" theory altogether, and hypothesizing that the mass variation depends only on the proximity, not the placement (which is why is obviously can't be a push/shielding theory). This is because, he says, if the mass variation was induced only in certain alignments, it would have the major effect on the Solar tides that he talked about (making them 370 times larger). And he clearly refers to the times when the Earth is beside us, not just in front or in back of us. Hence the Radz attempt to avade this by saying "front or back doesn't matter" is completely missing the point, and does not AT ALL address Russell's critique. As Russell plainly says, the ONLY way around it is to assume the magical varying mass effect depends only on proximity, not alignment as in a screening theory.

In summary, Russell's paper fully confirms everything I have been asserting here. I will re-write the shielding section, with supporting quotes, to make it perfectly clear what Russell said. This will then also make the misunderstandings and misrepresentation (and outright idiocy) of the Radz paper perfectly clear as well. (And it will hopefully serve to make others scrutinize the representations of certain editors here with a bit more skepticism and a bit more rationality, rather than accepting the pseudo-scientific mythology of those individuals).SJC1 00:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

One more observation: Russell's paper ends with him giving all the obvious - and utterly devastating - reasons why even the mystical "varying mass" theory makes no sense and cannot possibly work (in addition to not being a push theory and having nothing to do with "shielding"). Apparently these conclusions somehow escaped the attention of Radz, et al, not to mention the Pushing Gravity editor. SJC1 02:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I repeat it: We have not to discuss if Radzievskii's interpretation was right or wrong, or if his criticism on Russel's paper is "correct" or not. I only wanted to point out that there is a theory (Razievskii's) which claims that the equivalence principle is compatible with Le Sage gravity - and exactly that is now in the article. And on the other side, there are also many references like Bertolam et al, that gravitational shielding is always a violation of the equivalence principle - and that is also in the article. So everyone should decide for themselves. So before you begin to edit the section again, I please you to consider the fact, that we haven't to decide whether Radzievskii's theory is "silly", "nonsense" etc. --D.H 08:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
You misunderstand. I didn't say that the article should state that Radz is right or wrong. I said that the article should present all the verifiable facts of what Russell said, and then what Radz said Russell said - which happen to be two very different things. It is simply my opinion that these facts make it perfectly clear to any rational person that Radz's paper is infantile drivel, but there will be no need to explicitly state this in the article. Any such statement would be redundant anyway.SJC1 15:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
It's nice that SJC1 has gone so far as to acquire Russell's paper. Can we assume he has Radzievskii's paper too by now? It's reprinted in PG but his comments lead me to believe he does not have PG. In my first paper in the book I quote the same quote by Russell that he does and go on to show how this variance of mass could resolve some other problems.
I'll review Russell's paper on the point of whether the ocean waters must be on a line with the Sun and the Earth. I think you have misunderstood Russell here (you could assist by quoting the relevant passage to save time).
What SCJ1 is saying is that (a) Majorana is wrong because of Russell's two criticisms (b) Radzievskii's counterarguments are invalid because they go against Russell (a weird argument) and (c) therefore Radzievskii's paper is not a Le Sage theory and thus irrelevant. The only question which we must all address is: is it reasonable to suppose with Radzievskii that shielding reduces inertial mass along with gravitational mass? If it is reasonable, then his proof of the pontlessness of Russell's second argument stands. Radzievskii's paper then marks the beginning of a modern version of Le Sage's theory. Go ahead and rewrite if you want to, SCJ1, but be prepared for further rewrites by me. Your comments above have changed nothing at all.MRE 17:12, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
You still don't understand. There are TWO separate issued involved: (1) does inertial mass stay proportional to gravitational mass, and (2) is the variation directionally dependent, i.e., does it depend on the influencing matter being aligned (either between or outside) with the two subject bodies (i.e., a screening effect in a rectilinear flux theory like Lesage or Majorana), or is it merely dependent on the proximity?
Russell considers THREE different theories. FIRST, a screening theory that affects only gravitational mass. That is easily ruled out. SECOND, he considers a magical screening theory that somehow maintains proportionality of inertial and gravitational mass. This too is ruled out, due to the tidal effects. He shows that, even with inertial and gravitational mass varying in tandem, the variation itself for different times of the day causes an effect that is 370 times the size of the solar tides. Note that this variation exists regardless of whether you account only for "between" shielding or for both "between" and "outer" shielding. The magnitude of the oscillation is exactly the same, so Radz's argument about inner and outer shielding is irrelevant.
This brings Russell to the THIRD hypothetical theory, which not only maintains proportionality between inertial and gravitational mass, but also does away with the directional dependence of a shielding theory, and just says the putative effect is due to other mass being in the general proximity, not even aligned with the two subject masses (neither between them nor outside them). THIS is no longer any kind of push or shield or Lesage anything. (Russell talks about some kind of "curvature" effect reminiscent of general relativity.) And even THIS theory is shown to be untenable by Russell, because it blatently violates the conservation of momentum, the conservation of mass, and the conservation of energy, and would also affect the two-body orbital solution. (How much more untenable can a theory get?!) But remember, this last theory is NOT anything like a Lesage theory or a push theory of any kind. All such theories were ruled out by the first two models. (Actually, for anyone with a shred of intellectual integrity, they are all ruled out by just the first model, because there's no rational way to affect inertia by a push theory; however, there's no need to argue this point, because even if we "spot" you inertia, the shielding models still fail utterly to match observation.)
Radzievskii's paper is not just wrong, it's laughably, preposterously, and self-evidently wrong. Now, as D.heinz says, it is not our task to point this out, but it IS our task to present the facts accurately and clearly. As soon as we do this, the sheer idiocy of Radzievskii, et al, will be completely obvious to the reader. At that point, the reader may well wonder why such drivel is even taking up space in the article, but they can check this discussion page to see who insisted on including it, and why.SJC1
You're missing something with Russell's SECOND hypothesis and Radz's reply. Russell's analysis was premised on Majorana's theory, while Radz's countertheory was based on Le Sage. So you can't just say that Russell did away with the shielding possibility completely. You need to show some error in Radz's approach. The paper appeared initially in a standard Russian peer-reviewed journal, but the possibility of an error remains. Can you put your finger on it? If not, then give up your argument (since you've spotted me inertia now). Russell's THIRD hypothesis is still in play, of course, as well as some more recent suggestions.MRE 20:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course I can "put my finger on it". In Russell's critique of the magical second hypothesis he shows that the tide producing force for a given external body is proportional to

sin(z)[(3R/D)cos(z) + 2hRq cos(z)]

where "z" is the angle of the tide-producing body from the zenith. (For example, z=0 for the Sun at noon, and z=pi/2 for the Sun at dusk.) The 3R/D term is the well-known Newtonian tide effect, and it is 0.05 for the Moon and 0.00013 for the Sun. The magnitude of 2hRq using Majorana's value of h is 0.048, which is 370 times the size of the solar tide effect. No effect of this magnitude could possibly go unnoticed. It was already grossly outside the bounds of what is observationally viable, even in 1921.

Now, Russell did indeed say that the 2hRq term should be set to zero when z is above the horizon, because he had in mind a theory for which shielding would arise only if a blocking object is placed "in between" the two subjects. In contrast, Radz says this is not right, because shielding will occur even if both subjects are on the same side of the "blocking object".

HOWEVER (please pay attention now), this shielding still requires that the two subjects and the blocking object be aligned, so that a single straight line intersects all three. Radz does NOT claim (and couldn't possibly claim) that "shielding" takes place even for a blocking object that is not aligned with the two subjects. His argument simply implies that we should not set 2hRq to zero when z is above the horizon. According to Radz's argument, we should treat z above the horizon as providing the same shielding as it does for the same angle below the horizon. In other words, he is saying the actual tide producing force for a given body is proportional to

sin(z)[(3R/D)cos(z) - 2hRq |cos(z)|]

Note the absolute value sign, and this applies for all values of z, which of course ranges from 0 to 2pi each 24 hours. Notice that the tide-producing force is actually zero at noon and midnight, and also at dawn and dusk. (This applies both to the classical Newtonian term and the hypothetical shielding term.) It is a maximum in between those times. It oscillates throughout the day, producing the diurnal tides.

Now, the important point is that the "correction" of Radz does not diminish the magnitude of the shielding term or its variation. It still ranges from 0 to its maximum value (which is 370 times the sun's contribution) twice per day. The only difference is that Russell thought it cycles like this only once per day (because he truncated the above-horizon half of the cycle), whereas by Radz's argument we expect two excursions per day. Needless to say, Russell's point still applies (if anything, it makes the point even stronger). An effect of this magnitude is far too strong to pass unnoticed. Radz's argument about "inner" and "outer" shielding does absolutely nothing to evade this analysis.

By the way, so as not to be accused of impropriety, I should point out that I didn't actually "spot" inertia to YOU, I only "spotted" it to individuals who do not have a shred of intellectual integrity. I leave it up to you to decide if I have thereby spotted inertia to you.SJC1 21:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Will have to study this more closely. On the impropriety issue, that was not the wording you used. You'll still have to decide whether you're spotting me inertia or not.128.100.121.28 21:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)MRE 21:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
SJC1 has raised an interesting argument. If I try to frame my response within Russell's analysis, Radzievskii's reply and now SCJ1's counter reply, it is hard to say where SJC1 has gone wrong. However, there is a good chance an error is still in there and I would invite everyone to have a look. It's too bad we don't have Russell's paper online (or is it out there, Dietmar?).
Here's where I think SCJ1 could have gone astray. The tidal forces on the Earth arise because of a difference in the pulls of the Sun or Moon at different points on the Earth's surface. Consider the point A on the surface positioned closest to the Sun, the point B farthest from the Sun and the point C at a point on the surface midway between A and B. Under Majorana's theory, as noted by Russell, the force of the Sun at point A is unchanged from normal, while the force at point B is reduced a further amount from the normal situation. That extra reduction at B leads to excessively high tides compared to point A and so Russell rules out Majorana's theory.
In Le Sage's model, however, there is a reduction in the Sun's pull at BOTH points A and B. At point C there is no change. I would say that the effect in this case is to lower the solar tides at both A and B. It would be as though the Sun were moved further away from the Earth. The portion of the force originating from the downwards pull at point C would be unchanged. Looking at it this way, it's hard to see how the diurnal effect described by SCJ1 would emerge.
It's an interesting point and I give credit to SCJ1 for serving up a good curveball. I think I've gotten my bat on it but it's hard to say at this point. This is one of the trickiest areas in shielding theories. Now I know EMS will be wanting us not to write theses here, so we need merely to discuss what the article should say. I think the present wording is still pretty fair on this point.MRE 15:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
First, you have not gotten your bat on the ball, because (as already explained here) the tide-producing force is ZERO at A, B, and C. It is non-zero only between those positions. You obviously have no expertise in this area, and are in no position to refute the mainstream scientific explanation of the tides, and Wikipedia is not the place for uninformed ruminations and pseudo-science speculations.
Second, this is all irrelevant, because it's already been shown from MULTIPLE reputable sources, both ancient and current, that Le Sage theory entails a violation of the eqivalence principle. This has been clearly understood and acknowledged by every reputable physicist who ever considered the theory. The ONLY counter-claim in the reputable literature that you were claiming suggested otherwise was Russell (1921), a claim which has now been shown to be false. Russell explicitly acknowledged the logical inconsistency of trying to combine the equivalence principle with shielding. Radz (1960) did not dispute this, he simply ignored it, and his paper/technical bulletin is firmly in the "Recent Activity" section of the article, which is where it should stay.
I've written a full account (scrupulously referenced) of the whole Majorana / Russell / Radz comedy, and while it is mildly amusing from the standpoint of how pseudo-science ideas originate and are propagated into the fringe community, it's really much too long for this Le Sage article (in fact it's almost as long as the entire rest of the article!), and when it's all over, the obvious conclusion is that it was a waste of time and space.
So, I think the only sensible solution for this article on Le Sage theory is to go back to the purely factual version of the "Gravitational Shielding" section from August 21 (08:31) based on reputable sources, and leave Radz and Pushing Gravity where they belong, in the "Recent Activity" section. (I personally think even THIS is giving them too much space, since this whole Majorana / Russell / Radz / Pushing Gravity saga exposes the totally bogus nature of that "Activity", but in any case, that stuff certainly does not belong in the other sections of the article.)SJC1 16:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
You're over the top again. I've reverted to the previous version, which is fairer IMO.MRE 16:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
You've reverted to your version and asked me to read your discussion here. I did. What did I see? I saw that whereas I treated your discussion points with courtesy and respect, you did not do likewise. Further, you've rushed to the judgement that your interpretation is the correct one. Even if it is correct, which I did not concede, it is somewhat beside the point, because it is not in the literature. Why not write it up, if you're so sure of yourself here? No choice but to revert again.MRE 16:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
You are mistaken when you say my conclusion is not supported by the literature. My conclusion if FULLY supported by the literature, as has been shown by the quotations and citations I've provided. (Remember when I started this discussion by quoting Poincare, and you simply dismissed him out of hand?) The fact that Lesage gravity does not entail any violation of the conservation of inertial mass is well documented in the literature (not to mention self-evident to any sentient being), and you have been provided with multiple EXPLICIT quotes from the literature to that effect. Your only justification for claiming otherwise was the 1921 Russell reference, but your claims in that regard have been falsified, not just by reasoning, but by quoting what Russell actually said in the reference.
So, your rebuttal here is devoid of merit. I have presented a very well-reasoned and extremely well-documented explanation for why your idea is a neologism, and is unsupported (not to mention contradicted) by all the reputable literature in the field. At this point you are simply engaged in a blatent effort to insert your own POV into the article. I don't know how many more times you intend to revert to your POV version, but I hope you realize how this behavior makes you look.SJC1 18:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
You probably meant to say that Lesage gravity DOES entail a CP violation. There are few actual citations on this, however. Everyone cites Majorana's model. Even with the lunar lasing studies you're citing, that is the case. Basically, we have (a) Russell spotting Majorana EP (b) Radzievskii then incorporating EP in Le Sage's model and (c) no one replying to Radzievskii's suggestion. You can't claim that all the studies referring to Majorana shielding can be used straightforwardly to refute Le Sage Le Sage. The current version simply makes note of Radzievskii's paper. It even says he "suggested". You're getting all riled up over nothing. Who's POV here?MRE 18:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
No, I meant what I wrote: Lesage gravity does not entail any violation of the conservation of inertial mass. As Russell fully acknowledged (after first acknowleding that there is really no logically coherent way of incorporating the equivalence principle into a shielding theory), allowing the inertial mass of objects to vary represents a violation of the conservation of mass, and a violation of the conservation of momentum, and a violation of the conservation of energy. (But aside from that, it makes perfect sense!) What I'm saying is exactly the same as what Russell said, i.e., no discussion of any shielding theory gives ANY suggestion of a variation of inertial mass. He then went on to TRY to hypothesize such a theory, but he found that (1) it is logically self-contradictory, and (2) even if you fudge the numbers by aribtrarily adjusting the inertial mass to match the one particular interaction you are looking at (ignoring the infinitely many others), it STILL grossly conflicts with observation. So what on Earth is the point of rehashing all these disproofs in this article?
Your summary is wrong, because (a) as has been explained to you REPEATEDLY, Russell did NOT (let me repat that: NOT) spot Majorana the EP... he tried, but soon realized that it is logically inconsistent with a shielding theory, and then even by glossing over the inconsistency he STILL found that it was grossly inconsistent with observation, and (b) Radz did not "incorporate" anything, he merely invoked a superficial misunderstanding of Russell as a pretext to ignore the discrepancy of eleven orders of magnitude between his claims and reality, and (c) the scientific community DID respond, in the way it normally responds to obvious nonsense, namely, by ignoring it (even if it appears in such a prestigious forum as the bulletin of a Russian geological and astronomical society, reprinted in a Technical Report of Wright Patterson Airforce base).SJC1 22:39, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I have found an online version of Russell's paper. See On Majorana's Theory of Gravitation and also a link to Andrade Marins' historical paper: The search for gravitational absorption in the early 20th century (Very big pdf-file, c. 13 MB !!). --D.H 10:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I knew you would find it, Dietmar. Thanks.
Looking more at SJC1's argument on the tides, I am pretty sure he is correct. Assuming this now, it means Radzievskii did not solve Russell's tide problem. At the same time, it should be recalled that both Russell and Radzievskii were using Majorana's very high value for h (approx 10^-12 cm^2/gm). Thus, we could eliminate Majorana's value from contention. To get the solar tide effect down to an acceptable level, h would need to be at least one thousand times less, putting it around 10^-15. This is close to the lowest upper limit for h established in laboratory experiments. Radzievskii's paper still makes an important theoretical contribution, both with the EP assumption and with his modernized Le Sage treatment (even if SJC1 is inclined to disregard Radzievskii and his many papers in Russian journals). It is still an omission to keep him out of the article.MRE 17:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Radz needs to be kept out of the article. In fact, there is one aspect of his model that I think is actually worth mentioning, namely, the idea of addressing the drag problem by postulating an ultramundane flux with a uniform energy distribution over a wide rage of frequencies (or, equivalently, over a wide range of particle speeds), combined with the postulate that ordinary matter absorbs only frequencies within a certain band. My only hesitation in adding this to the article is that there are many obvious objections and reasons why it isn't a viable idea, and yet it would be difficult to find any counter-balancing references, because no reputable source (that I know of) as taken the trouble to address this idea. Maybe the article could just briefly sketch the idea after mentioning Radz's paper in the "Recent Activity" section, without suggesting that it is accepted or viable. It is at least a logically coherent idea (unlike the EP with shielding stuff), and it is new (at least it doesn't seem to have occurred to Poincare, etc).

Obsolete Theory?

By the way, why was the "Obsolete Theory" tag removed from the article? I saw no discussion of this. Has it been decided that Le Sage theory is no longer obsolete? This conclusion seems inconsistent with the comments in the article itself, pointing out that Le Sage theory is not considered viable by mainstream science.SJC1 17:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't think discussion was required. If the theory was truly obsolete, like the flat Earth theory, then it would be illogical to include a "recent activity" section, wouldn't it?MRE 22:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Not so. The Wikipedia Article on "flat earth" actually does include a "recent activity" section at the end, called Modern Evangelical Flat Eartheners. The existence of "activity" on a subject doesn't imply that it's a currently viable scientific theory. Every field of pseudo-science is based on a few individuals who become convinced, for various reasons, that some old obsolete idea is actually the key to the universe, limitless free energy, inter-galactic travel, etc. I think the objective criterion for being an obsolete physics theory is to count the number of articles published in reputable physics journals on the subject in, say, the last fifty years. For Le Sage gravity I'd guess the grand total is, well, zero. You can even find explicit references to the obsoleteness of Le Sage theory, such as Aronson, Feynman, Roseveare. Every reputable modern discussion of the theory that I know of (which admittedly aren't that many, because it's SO obsolete that hardly anyone even mentions it) makes it very clear that Le Sage theory is not viable. If the "recent activity" section of this article seems to suggest otherwise, then it ought to be revised and corrected.
Actually, I recall that D.heinz added a sentence to the very end of that section, just to re-iterate that the "proposed models" in that section carry no scientific weight, but the sentence was deleted as redundant, since the first sentence of that section already says the same thing. But since your impression is that the last section, as presently written, suggests some scientific viablility of the theory, then perhaps we should re-instate D.heinz's concluding sentence to correct that mis-impression.
This raises another point, which is that if someone came to the article wanting a succinct summary of WHY the theory is not considered scientifically viable, he would have a hard time, because the article is structured (despite the disclaimers) as if it's describing a viable theory, and a person needs to read each section carefully, wading through all the tenderized verbiage, to see that Le Sage theory is actually falsified, on multiple counts, and is grossly inconsistent with the most basic physical principles, and that this has been known for over a hundred years. Maybe a new section is needed on "Problems With Le Sage Theory".SJC1 01:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to spend much time on this, because I think your statements are quite baseless and not needing rebuttal. There are plenty of recent papers in reputable journals which are fashioned after Le Sage, including the ones we have listed. There are many more which are clearly Le Sage-type, but which do not cover the history and so are weaker. You're acting as though we understand a lot about gravity; we actually understand very little. There are also numerous disclaimers in the present article.MRE 14:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I see Pjacobi would prefer to edit without discussion.MRE 18:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally I wonder if this theory has ever been been current enough to warrant being called "obsolete". OTOH I also wonder (given the success of general relativity) whether Newton's law of universal gravitation is not also technically an "obsolete" theory.
The real trouble with designations like this (whether they are justified or not) is that they are insult for the subject in question. --EMS | Talk 03:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is just the ways science works. Zillions of theories are proposed, a fraction of them become significant players. As time marches on and new insights arrives, a part of them get discarded (like Le Sage's t.o.g. -- it's not found any more in curricula other than history of science) and another part (liek Newton's gravity) become approximations of more general theories. The inverse square law is still taught. --Pjacobi 06:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Pjacobi's comment illustrates how subjective the designation is. Now it's what's being taught in curricula. Looking at the list of "obsolete" theories, one does find some truly obsolete ideas, such as "flat earth" and "martian canals". But there are many others where there are still theorists writing papers in peer-reviewed journals. These include "tired light", "Lamarckism", "Steady State theory" and "pilot wave". (At least I think pilot wave is still active). Perhaps there was an aim here to insult the theories, as EMS suggests. I see also "User:Lesagian" there! Wikipedia should probably drop this page, as it is not really that helpful.MRE 15:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Lamarkism and steady state theory are very much obsolete (although I will admit that some new research about gene expression being affected by inherited RNA raises the posibility that Lamark was not totally wrong after all). Personlly, I think that discredited scientific theories would be a better moniker. None the less, categories like obsolete scientific theories do have a way of being contentious because they insult the topic. Note however that the usual problem is people wanting to put things like evolution or relativity into it instead of wanting to keep something out of it. (BTW - I have removed User:LeSagian from the category. This was due to his holding an old copy of this article in his user page.) --EMS | Talk 17:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Limitless Free Energy Again!

Any elaboration of Radz's views must include his conclusions, which are as follows:

The Lomonosov-Lesage hypothesis not only makes it possible to easily interpret the Majorana phenomenon, but also in clarifying the essence of gravity it opens up perspectives for further investigations of the internal structure of matter and for a study of the possibility of controlling gravitational forces, and consequently the energy of the gravitational field. To illustrate the power of the energy, it suffices to recall that in the Majorana experiments the weight of the lead sphere, when introduced into the hollow sphere of mercury, decreased by 10^-6 g, which is equivalent to the liberation of twenty million calories of gravitational energy.

So we can all look forward to routine intergalactic travel and limitless free energy! If only we can get the hide-bound reactionary mainstream scientific community to stop suppressing research into Lesage gravity! Write your congressman!SJC1 22:39, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Russell Says Shielding / Equivalence Principle Logically Incompatible

There are even bigger problems with the whole "magical second theory" that seems so plausible to everyone else here. It's such a wacked-out idea, that it takes a rational person a few minutes to get his bearings and articulate why it doesn't make sense. But if you look at the section of Russell's paper where he discusses the "second theory", i.e., the theory that supposedly waves it's magic wand and decrees that inertial mass always remains equal to gravitational mass, you run into the awkward fact that there is no such thing as the gravitational mass of an object in the context of a theory that contains shielding. (Note that this is EXACTLY what I said previously.) You see, Russell acknowledges that when trying to decide what inertial mass to assign to a cup of water at a certain point on the globe, there is no "right" answer, because that water has one gravitational mass based on its attraction to the Earth, and a DIFFERENT "gravitational mass" based on its attraction to the Moon, because the latter is shielded. If there is no shielding, then every object has an unambiguous gravitational mass, but if there IS shielding, then every object has infinitely many different gravitational masses, so which of those do we set the inertial mass equal to? Russell says we could just choose one at random, but he decides to choose a compromise value somewhere in between, and he parameterizes this with a parameter epsilon.

So, you see, it is simply not accurate to say blithly that Russell evaluated a shielding theory that satisfies the equivalence principle, because, as I said all along, there really IS NO SUCH THING. Such a thing is inherently self-contradictory. What Russell was doing was really just trying to fudge around to see if there was ANY way of matching Majorana's data - and of course (as explained in my comments above) the answer is no. But my point here is that the article presently is inaccurate in its presentation of what Russell said. He did not disguise the fact that postulating a shielding theory plus the equivalence principle leads to unavoidable logical inconsistencies. So, either the section needs to be greatly expanded to give a full account of all this counter-factual hypothesizing, or it should all be ditched.

For the moment, while mulling this over, I'm going to at least delete the unverifiable footnote someone added, claiming that varying inertia is a natural feature of a Lesage model (!).SJC1 05:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to re-iterate that last point, the footnote claiming that one would naturally expect inertia to be affected along with gravitational attraction in a Lesage theory does not belong in the article, because there is no reputable source for that claim. If someone wants to re-insert that claim, they should provide a reputable reference. SJC1 17:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

IMO references to "modern Le Sage theories", even in a footnote, are inappropriate outside of the "current status" section of this article. For the issue in discussion here, conformance to the equivalence principle, I also don't see a big need for its inclusion in the "current status" section. Wikipedia is not a soapbox: It should not be used to promote Le Sage style theories. I know that MRE has is trying to include this in good faith, but I don't see it as working well. --EMS | Talk 18:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
On SJC1's first point, employing the EP assumption, both the gravitational and inertial mass of an atom vary according to the amount it is shielded. If buried inside a black hole-type object, for example, its mass on both counts would go to zero. Now for the situations Russell discussed, yes, the gravitational/inertial mass of an atom would vary slightly throughout the day.
Maybe my footnote was a little POV, but it was a reaction to the somewhat POV statement that Radz didn't say how the EP was to be achieved in Le Sage's theory. He didn't have to say how. It is assumed nowadays in most if not all gravitational theories. It actually makes a lot of sense in Le Sage's theory.MRE 20:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that you are reaching a bit here. Einstein used the EP as a starting point for the development general relativity, but in the full theory it became a consequence of inertial motion in curved spacetimes. More to the point, in a "good" theory the EP is not assumed, but instead is obtained. You note above about inertial mass also decreasing as a result of shielding is the first time that a mechanism for the EP in Le Sage gravitation has been presented to me. (Note however that this calls for planets to have large moments of inertia due to mass extinction at their cores, but that is not what has been observed.)
Even with the above, please keep in mind that the EP works in GR since gravitation is not due to a force in that theory. In Le Sage gravitation, a force is involved. That is why it is not automatic that gravitational and inertial masses by identical in this kind of theory. Indeed, this issue was vexing to Newton, as he had to insert it as a postulate, but knew that there was no good reason why the two had to be the same if gravity was a force.
Overall, I maintain my advice to keep the details involving current Le Sage theorizing out of the main body of the article. To some extent the current edits are an attempt to get around the recent contraction of the "current status" section. Perhaps a new expansion of the section is in order, with some of these issues being broached, but with it also being made very clear that the mainstream scientific community is not impressed by these adjustments. --EMS | Talk 19:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The question is how current is Radzievskii? It's been almost fifty years. The paper still stands as a useful analysis. At one time I had Radzievskii's ideas in a section called "2oth century developments" or some such. Maybe we could reinsert that, to capture better the Russell/Majorana/Radz issue. Perhaps it is worth repeating that all of SCJ1's references in the shielding section apply to Majorana shielding.MRE 19:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

ems57fcva Wrote:

I think that you are reaching a bit here. Einstein used the EP as a starting point for the development general relativity, but in the full theory it became a consequence of inertial motion in curved spacetimes. More to the point, in a "good" theory the EP is not assumed, but instead is obtained. You note above about inertial mass also decreasing as a result of shielding is the first time that a mechanism for the EP in Le Sage gravitation has been presented to me.
Not true, and you have a very poor memory. See the archive... Quote;
"Moreover, there is the more fundamental question of what is inertia? Its very definition is linked to a force response. In fact, this is how we define mass. For inertia, where that force response originates has never even been defined, much less identified. As is rather obvious, in Le Sage theory the gravitational force results from inelastic interactions with the corpuscular field. We have no reason to think that the force response of for inertia is somehow different. Unless some other causal agent for the inertial response can be clearly defined there exists no reason to say, or even think it must. In other words, in Le Sage theory if the mass is screened this is so for both gravitational and inertial response. In all Le Sage models the force response is solely a function of an attenuation cross-section. Massive becomes an emergent quantity, not a fundamental one, arrising from the LeSagian attenuation process itself."
(Note however that this calls for planets to have large moments of inertia due to mass extinction at their cores, but that is not what has been observed.)
Explain this logic. That which is shielded is out of play does not affect anything. Mass M becomes the apparent mass for all observable effects. Thus the comment above about massiveness becoming an emergent quantity. Photons have momentum but no massiveness.
Even with the above, please keep in mind that the EP works in GR since gravitation is not due to a force in that theory. In Le Sage gravitation, a force is involved.
No, a force is emergent, the real process is pressure gradients in the Le Sage media.
That is why it is not automatic that gravitational and inertial masses by identical in this kind of theory.
No, it would be, emergent.
Indeed, this issue was vexing to Newton, as he had to insert it as a postulate, but knew that there was no good reason why the two had to be the same if gravity was a force.
Actually, there is, but...
Overall, I maintain my advice to keep the details involving current Le Sage theorizing out of the main body of the article. To some extent the current edits are an attempt to get around the recent contraction of the "current status" section. Perhaps a new expansion of the section is in order, with some of these issues being broached, but with it also being made very clear that the mainstream scientific community is not impressed by these adjustments. --EMS | Talk 19:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I liked (and found it a equable compromise) the version that was up before 63.24... reapeared in yet another sock and started his duplicious antics. For the month prior to his reappearance every other editor, including you, also seem ok with it. LeSagian 20:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
First things first: If SJC1 is really a new "sock puppet" for "Fixwiki", then I will be most shocked. Everything that this editor has done had been done in a way that totally un-"Fixwiki"-like. He starts off hyping TVF. "Fixwiki" would sooner kill himself than do that as best I can tell. Then he slowly gets into the program and contributes as part of the team. That is a hallmark of a newbie. Experienced editors betray themselves very quickly, and hitting the ground running was always a sign that this must be Fixwiki. Finally, while I have seen SJC1 talk down to you all at times, I have yet to see the disgust and venom that Fixwiki would heap on us all at the drop of a hat. In other words, SJC1 is not Fixwiki. Instead, SJC1 is a fairly sane mainstream editor.
Then be most shocked! On 17:11, 25 August 2006 SJC1 accidently failed to log in and, surprise, surprise, we find the IP address of SJC1 is 63.24.32.44 which, if you bother to look back into the archive (Dramatis Personae) is that sock's IP. Your naiveté is clearly showing...
Secondly, you wrote above in response to my remark on gravitation being due to a force in LeSage gravitation:
a force is emergent, the real process is pressure gradients in the Le Sage media.
Yet "pressure gradeients" move objects by exerting a net force of them. Let's just say that I am not impressed. I also don't think that an argument over this issue will be productive BTW. The main point is that I support the position of SJC1 on this issue, but am willing to reconsider that position given good reasons supported by appropriate citations.
As for the "recent activity" section: It bloated into something different than it was before it got cut back. Even before it got cut back, I was not 100% comfortable with it, and regularly considered removing the Mingst & Stowe part. I admit that I like your suggestion that the Pioneer anomaly can be resolved with Le Sage gravitation, but publication in PG is not sufficient grounds to keep it from being OR. Yet I also think that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now. A broader treatment of the current activity is needed, but it has to be well focussed and constrained.
Returning to the issue of SJC1 vs. "Fixwiki": I always told "Fixwiki" that I would happily support him if he would step back and not be more POV than any other editor here. He never did, and I advise you to remember that I was part of triggering the 3RR block that drove him off. SJC1, after an odd and rough start, is proving to be a careful and thoughtful editor instead of a blatant POV warrier. That is the kind of editor that can support. I won't let him walk all over you, but neither will I let you walk all over him. --EMS | Talk 04:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I have found an online version of Russell's paper. See On Majorana's Theory of Gravitation and also a link to Andrade Martins' historical paper: The search for gravitational absorption in the early 20th century (Very big pdf-file, c. 13 MB !!). --D.H 10:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Le Sage gravity illustrations

I've added some impressions on Le Sage gravity. I hope they are useful for the article. --D.H 16:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I like them, gives the article some colour.MRE 18:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The JJ Thomson reference

The reference to J.J. Thomson's 1911 encyclopedia article seems out of place, because overall the section is proceeding chronologically, and yet Thomson is 1911 whereas the following sub-section is Poincare 1908. Furthermore, the whole content of Thomson's 1911 article is just a repeat of what Poincare described explicitly in 1908, so I'm thinking it would be more appropriate to include that discussion in the Poincare section, maybe with just a footnote saying that Thomson repeated Poincare's comments in a 1911 encyclopedia article.

The beginning of the Thomson reference, in which he talks about matter being purely electrical in origin, is also problematic, because it was already known in Thomson's day (although not well known) that this hypothesis was untenable. In fact, it was Poincare (again) who first proved this in his famous Palermo paper of 1906. So, we have another situation here where we either need to expand the section to make it clear that the idea is now known to be incorrect, or else simply delete it altogether. SJC1 01:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not clear whether Thomson only repeated Poincare's arguments. He was very influenced by Drude (in his article in the "Annalen der Physik, 1897, Über Fernewirkungen") - and it's quite possible that Poincare himself was influenced by the same paper (I will check this out). So it seems not correct to me to abandon Thomson's Encyclopedia article to a short remark in the Poincare section. Therefore (and to maintain chronological order) I restored the Thomson passage. --D.H 07:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Lomonosov ??

The paper by Radz refers often to Lomonosov as one of the first to propose a Le Sage type theory (it's clear that Radz was unaware of Fatio), but the only reference given in Radz's paper is

1. M. V. Lomonosov. Poinoye sobraniye sochineniy. Vol. 1. lzd. AN SSSR.

There's no date on this reference, and I've not been able to track it down. Can anyone identify when Lomonosov wrote on this subject? Has anyone seen what he wrote? Should it be mentioned in the article? SJC1 18:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Lomonosow (as far as I know) described his theory in a letter to Euler. Maybe I can find it. I'm also working on a description of Fatio's Theory - I was able to acquire the so called "Bopp Edition" of Fatio's paper "De la cause de la Pesanteur". This is the completest version of Fatio's theory and was edited by Karl Bopp in 1929. The edition is based on Fatio's complete munuscript, which was copied by Jakob Bernoulli in 1701 and is now in the University Library in Basel, Switzerland.
Unfortunateley B. Gagnebin did not know this edition, therefore his own edition from 1949, which only was based on the fragments collected by Le Sage and some fragments from Cambridge, is incomplete. --D.H 08:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Nicolas Fatio de Duillier

Like in the German version I included some links to original papers of Fatio in the external links section: The letters no. 2570 and 2582, written in 1690. They contain the first written expositon of his theory (Later Fatio included them in his paper "De la Cause de la Pesanteur"). For further details see Horst Zehe: "Die Gravitationstheorie des Nicolas Fatio de Duillier" (1980). Based on Zehe's book, Van Lunteren also described these letters in "Fatio on the cause of universal gravitation", in PG, pp. 52-54. (See also the footnotes there).
I think it's necessary to describe Fatio's theory in the "Early development"-section in some detail. If there is no objection, I will create a Fatio-passage soon. --D.H 17:24, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I think more on Fatio is fine.MRE 17:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed there are some graphic elements in the German version Dietmar mentions. Our article is lacking these. Maybe some of the ones in the German version could be useful.MRE 20:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I will try to include some pictures. --D.H 10:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone been able to access the letters of Fatio listed in the "Other Links" section of the article? When I click on them, I just get some kind of error message. SJC1 01:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, normally you can access them. But in the last days obviously some server-errors arose. That isn't the first time, but in the next days the links will work again.
However, I've made a copy of these letters, and you can download them here: Letter no. 2570 and Letter no. 2582. --D.H 08:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I have moved this Fatio section to the end of the discussion page, because I think there will be some discussion soon on this topic and that will make it easier for the readers to follow the disussion. --D.H 17:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Dietmar, the material you've added is interesting, but unfortunately it causes the article to not flow very well. I can really see just two options. One is to shorten the Fatio material considerably. The other would be to move most of the material to the separate article on Fatio and to link to that page. As it stands the reader would be very confused as to how Fatio fits in with Le Sage's theory.MRE 01:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the Fatio material is essential for any (even remotely) accurate survey of the subject. It's true that this increased accuracy requires changes in the rest of the article, to be consistent with the facts. For example, it's quite clear that Fatio had developed the theory not only far beyond anything Lesage ever did, but even beyond what Kelvin did. Notice that Fatio proposed the energy of the impacts would be carried away by vibrational and/or rotational energy modes of the corpuscles - a suggestion wrongly attributed to Kelvin. So not only was Lesage's contribution to the theory was nil, so was Kelvin's. It goes without saying that the theory is mis-named, but I'm afraid we're stuck with the name "Le Sage gravity", just because Le Sage did such a good job of appropriating the idea and claiming it as his own. But this shouldn't prevent the article from giving the facts - regardless of how embarrassing those facts may be for certain latter-day "researchers".
One questionable statement in the latest additions to the article is the claim that Le Sage arrived at his (primitive) version of the theory independently. I don't know of any documentary evidence to support this claim, whereas this is quite a bit of evidence, both documentary and circumstantial, to the contrary. I think it's best to just state the facts, and not insert judgements about whether or not Le Sage was independent of Fatio.
The present article also errs in claiming that we would not know anything about Fatio's theory if it weren't for Le Sage. The truth is that Fatio is, and always has been, a recognized historical figure, if for no other reason than his close association with Isaac Newton. Every Newtonian scholar is well aware of Fatio and his mechanistic theory of gravity, and how Fatio tried to get Newton to include it in the 2nd edition of the Principia, and how Newton refused, and Newton's reasons for rejecting Fatio's model. And none of this knowledge comes by way of Le Sage. There are many many sources of information about Fatio. He corresponded and was on intimate terms with most of the prominent physicists of the day. Furthermore, as D.H points out, the only complete copy we have of Fatio's paper was preserved not by Le Sage, but through Bernoulli. Even the Fatio material that Le Sage acquired was left in such a state of disarray, and Le Sage's public appraisals were so dismissive and denigrating of Fatio, that it seems more accurate to say Le Sage had an overall net suppressing effect on posterity's appreciation of Fatio's accomplishment.
Far from shortening the Fatio material (as MRE advocates), I think it ought to continue to be expanded, giving a full account of what Fatio did. Only this way can all the later "activities" be placed in the correct perspective. SJC1 04:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with having Fatio's work presented in detail in the article on Fatio and having Le Sage's work presented in the article on Le Sage? You can't seriously maintain that the introduction of the Fatio material in the way it is now improves the article. Please cease and desist from this approach. We've had our discussions on Fatio and your assertions were incorrect. The facts are (1) Fatio had a theory which resembled Le Sage's in many ways; (2) everyone forgot about that theory, with the notable exception of Le Sage, who advocated it and made every effort to give credit to Fatio (see Kelvin's paper); (3) Le Sage did come up with his theory independently, as numerous sources confirm; (4) Le Sage's version of the theory is the one that scientists like Kelvin later reexamined and updated. To my knowledge no physicist ever published a paper which was primarily based on Fatio's rather than Le Sage's version. I realize you are a big fan of Fatio. I like him too - he had a lot of colour. But this article should not try to rewrite history by placing too great an emphasis on him.MRE 13:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I DO seriously contend that a discussion of Fatio's theory is an improvement. Fatio was the originator of the theory. Le Sage added nothing, as the documentary evidence clearly shows. All Le Sage did was filter out some of the more intelligent and sophisticated aspects (which he didn't understand) of Fatio's theory. The article still needs a lot of work, because it still shows some residual symptoms of having been structured around the bogus "Pushing Gravity" mythology, both from a technical and a historical standpoint. But gradually the article is making progress, as people begin to insert accurate information.

Remember, this article is not a biographical article on Georges Louis Lesage. It is about the general idea of kinetic mechanistic models of gravity in various forms over the centuries, including the ideas of many people on this subject, including Kelvin, Maxwell, Lorentz, Poincare, etc. Surely it is appropriate for the originator of the theory (Fatio) to be represented. The fact that the theory is called "Le Sage theory" is just a historical accident, like "Olber's Paradox". Le Sage added nothing of substance. It's just due to his relentless self-promotion that the idea is now called "Le Sage gravity". I personally wouldn't mind re-titling the article to something like Fatio-Lesage Theory, or Kinetic Theory of Gravity, or some such. However, I think, like Olber's paradox, we're probably stuck with the name "Le Sage gravity".

MRE's memory of the previous discussions is faulty, as anyone who is interested can verify for themselves by reading back through this Discussion page. All my assertions about Fatio vis-a-vis Le Sage have been shown to be correct by documentary evidence, and all MRE's contrary assertions have been shown to be wrong. Amazingly, even in his latest comments (above), MRE continues to state things that have now been proven to be incorrect and/or warped. Let's review them one at a time:

(1) He says "Fatio had a theory which resembled Le Sage's in many ways". Wow. It is nearly inconceivable that a rational person, in possession of the information that has now been spoon fed to MRE, could make such a statement with a straight face. It's perfectly clear (from the primary sources that have been quoted) that Fatio had EVERY aspect of what is now called "Le Sage theory", PLUS far more, and that Le Sage's version is just a dumbed-down rendition. Fatio even had the feature that is erroneously attributed to Kelvin. Nothing substantially new has been added to "kinetic gravity theory" since 1696. (The only possible exception is the Radz idea of avoiding drag by distributing the momentum of the flux uniformly over a range of speeds - or frequencies in the case of waves, an idea that is easy to refute, but at least it's coherent and new.)

(2) MRE's claim that "everyone forgot about the theory except Le Sage" is self-evidently false, as has been explained in detail. Also, his claim that Le Sage scrupulously gave credit to Fatio has been totally exploded by the documentary evidence. The claim of Le Sage's generosity originated with his friend Prevost and was simply repeated verbatim by the ever-gullible Thomson, who knew nothing about the history of the subject other than what Prevost told him. Honestly, ask youself how good a job Le Sage did in informing Kelvin of Fatio's accomplishment, if Kelvin (and many others) came away with the idea that Le Sage was actually the discoverer of the theory, and that Fatio just had a "vaguely similar" idea(!), which he (Fatio) didn't develop very far(!), and hadn't even known that the corpuscles must be slowed by the interactions! Further, if Le Sage had really provided an accurate appraisal of Fatio's work, he would have saved Kelvin the trouble of trying to solve the heat transfer problem by positing corpuscles with vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. Look at the opinion that Kelvin expresses of Fatio's work, and then try to say with a straight face that Le Sage conveyed generous credit to his predecessors. Kelvin's erroneous beliefs could be blamed on ignorance and his reliance on Prevost and Le Sage, but we have no such excuse today for holding those erroneous beliefs, let along propagating them in Wikipedia. In any case, Kelvin was not a historian, and therefore is not a suitable source for a historical appraisal of Fatio and Le Sage.

(3) MRE's third claim, that Le Sage came up with the idea independently, is both unsubstantiated and extremely implausible, given all the evidence that has now been provided, not to mention the connections between Fatio and the Le Sage family. MRE has provided none of the "numerous sources" that he says prove Le Sage had the idea independently (when he was a little boy). We also know that Le Sage was in possession of most (if not all) of Fatio's main paper on the cause of gravity, and this paper clearly and explicitly shows that Fatio had developed the theory beyond what Le Sage ever did, and yet Le Sage never breathed a word of this. At the very least, he was guilty of failing to acknowledge, when he realized it, that he had been fully preceeded by Fatio in every aspect of the theory. Continuing to claim priority after that point amounts to plaigerism. I personally think it's almost certain that Le Sage as a boy heard something of Fatio's theory from his father, but regardless of that, he certainly knew about Fatio when he wrote Newtonien Lucretius, in which he claims that everyone prior to himself had been essentially clueless. By the time he wrote that, he KNEW it was not true.

(4) MRE says "Le Sage's version of the theory is the one that scientists like Kelvin later reexamined and updated". Well, sad to say, this is partly true, but only because of Le Sage's relentless self-promotion, combined with his disparagement of Fatio and other predecessors and suppression of their works. None of the elements of "Le Sage's theory" were original to Le Sage. Not one. The fact is that Le Sage filtered out the more intelligent and sophisticated aspects of Fatio's theory, and presented just a dumbed-down version, leading people like Kelvin to repeat what Fatio had already done. But, again, Kelvin was not a historian, and simply accepted Prevost's and Le Sage's account of events. By the way, Kelvin's little excursion into Le Sage theory was just an insignificant episode in his career, not even meriting a single mention in typical biographies (even those that go into his mechanistic ether theories in excruciating detail). So the idea that he was a champion of the idea is simply part of the mythology.SJC1 04:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I think it would also be good to mention Lomonosov. It would be great if we could get a copy of the letter to Euler. SJC1 20:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

On one hand I tend to be sympathetic with your goal of getting more attention for Fatio. His was a precursor theory to Le Sage's and I had indicated to D.H that more info on him could be good. But then Dietmar inserted a rather complicated section that is totally out of step with the article. One can not even see, for example, how it relates to the simple section "Le Sage's basic theory". Now you are complicating the picture even further woth your repetitions of some of your false claims regarding Fatio, Le Sage and Kelvin. We have discussed those ad nauseum and anyone can consult the archived discussions to decide who is right and who is wrong here. You've made one or two new points and I will limit my discussion to these.
You mention that you would prefer a title for the article such as "Fatio/Le Sage Theory" or "Kinetic theories of gravitation". You omit "Fatio's Theory of Gravitation". Why? Why not go to the Fatio page and do Fatio some justice, since you feel justice was denied. Or you could start a page on kinetic theories. No one's stopping you. I just question your constant smears of Le Sage and all who cited him. Whatever title you might prefer for the present article, it happens to be "Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation". So let's respect that and not make it Fatio's.
Under your point (1) you imply that Le Sage basically stole from Fatio. That is totally POV - no one else has stated that. We've discussed this before. I just have to repeat this most important point, since you haven't changed your opinion.
Under (2) you now drag poor Pierre Prevost and Kelvin into the "anyone but Fatio" conspiracy. When all those folks did was to try to give Fatio some credit, even though Fatio never actually published his theory anywhere. We have a chain of people, including Le Sage, Prevost and Kelvin, who conscientiously went out of their way to give Fatio credit - and you call them either thieves or fools!! How POV is that?
Under point (3), we had a long discussion about the Le Sage as little boy thing. I refer readers to the archive. Under (4), again, you have not a shred of evidence that Le Sage ever disparaged Fatio. He credited him time and time again.
To sum up you are again trying to use Wikipedia to soapbox for your POV Fatio. What's the point of it all? If your so sure of your views, why not publish them somewhere? Let some reviewers have a go at it.
I'm OK with mention of Lomonosov. In Russia many think he was the man, rightly or wrongly.MRE 22:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
MRE asks why we don't create a NEW page on kinetic theories of gravity, but he overlooks the fact that THIS is the Wikipedia page on kinetic theories of gravity. The title of this page has changed before, and it could change again. Originally it was something like "Lesage Gravity", making it clear that it was generic on the subject of an entire class of theories. But then at some point it was changed to "Le Sage's Theory of Gravity", which parses better grammatically, but is very problematic conceptually for two reasons. First, the article spends more time discussing the kinetic gravity ideas of other people (e.g., the wave theories) than it does talking about the historical theory actually expounded by Georges Le Sage. Second, in point of fact, "Lesage's theory" was not originated by Le Sage. So, for both of these reasons, it's just silly to suggest that this article should be limited to Le Sage. The article on Olber's paradox doesn't dwell on Heinrich Olber, and the editors didn't feel compelled to pretend as if Olber was the originator of the paradox, or even that he contributed anything of significance, other than getting his name attached to it. The same applies to Le Sage.
Next, MRE says that I claimed Le Sage stole from Fatio in point (1) of my previous comments. Actually it was point (3) where I discussed Le Sage's putative independence of discovery, and although I stated that personally think it is likely (having studied the facts of the matter) that Le Sage the younger heard about Fatio's theory as a boy, my real point is that we know without a doubt that Le Sage continued to claim to be the original discoverer of "his" theory decades after he had demonstrateably come into possession of Fatio's writings, by which time he KNEW that he had no claim to priority in ANY aspect of the theory. He kept this knowledge to himself. Now, MRE says there is no evidence of Le Sage speaking disparagingly of Fatio. I can only suggest that MRE acquaint himself with Le Sage's published writings. Read, for example, the extended appraisal of his predecessors that Le Sage gave in Newtonien Lucretius. If THAT's what MRE calls praise, then I'd hate to see what he calls disparagement!
MRE's confusion over the content of my points (1) and (3) is a bit puzzling. Surely he does not any longer dispute the fact that Fatio anticipated Kelvin's internal energy modes... so what exactly is MRE challenging in point (1) of my comments?
Then MRE goes on to say that I'm not giving Le Sage, Prevost, and Kelvin the credit they deserve for so scrupulously crediting Fatio. Huh??? Look, just to re-cap, in case an sentient beings are reading this: We've established with documented evidence that Fatio originated ALL (not most, ALL) of the features of what later came to be called "Le Sage's Theory of Gravity", and we've established equally well that Le Sage KNEW this, certainly by the time he wrote Newtonien Lucretius, and we've established that Le Sage gave Prevost and Kelvin the impression that he (Le Sage) was the originator of the theory, and that Fatio had some vaguely similar ideas, but didn't follow them through, and didn't really propose a coherent theory. We know all these things to be facts. From these facts, MRE would have us conclude that Le Sage and poor old Prevost "conscientiously went out of their way to give Fatio credit". What can one say when confronted with "reasoning" like that??
Then MRE repeats his denial of the fact that Le Sage, in his own words, told us that he conceived his theory "in his early youth" or "as a child" or however you choose to translate it, and goes on to say that he didn't appreciate at the time, being just a small child, the worth of his views. (Only later did he come to fully appreciate what a great genius he was.) No objective person reading Le Sage's account of his discovery of the theory would disagree that he was claiming to have discovered it as a little boy. MRE doesn't like this, because it doesn't conform to his POV mythology, but it is a well-documented fact. We have Le Sage's own word for it. Case closed.
Then we find MRE repeating his previously falsified claim that Le Sage credited Fatio "time and time again". I will simply note that when I asked MRE previously to actually quote ONE (just ONE!) example of all these "creditings", he was unable to do so. In contrast, I provided several quotes of Le Sage disparaging all of his predecessors. Case closed.
I do agree that the format of the recent Fatio material is inconsistent with the rest of the article, and is not entirely "encyclopedic", so it definitely needs work, but the information itself is crucial to the article. SJC1 03:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Another clarification: MRE disparages Fatio for not "publishing", overlooking the fact that in Fatio's day to have something read before the Royal Society, and to have circulated among collegues, and even gotten them to sign copies of it, was equivalent to later practices of publication... and furthermore, Fatio submitted an exposition of his theory to a prize contest, which is EXACTLY what Le Sage did with his Chymie "paper". Aside from this contest entry, the only exposition that Le Sage ever published in his lifetime was Newtonien Lucretius... the document that MRE seems loath to even glance at, since it dispells so many of his misconceptions. So, the difference between the publication records of Fatio and Le Sage is not very great. But Le Sage lived later, and effectively suppressed Fatio's writings and reputation (whether intentionally or unintentionally), and had the good fortune to be survived by a friend (Prevost) who promoted his ideas after his death. Such are the vagaries of history.SJC1 03:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
First: I've scanned the complete Bopp edition and its available at http://de.geocities.com/d_hainz/Fatio-Bopp.pdf (Public domain). I will try to make a better copy and than iclude it into the external link section.
Second: Was the theory found independently by Le Sage? I don't think that we can answer this question on wikipedia. But we can show, what exactly Le Sage and Prevost wrote about Fatio - but this will take some time. All writers about Le Sage (including Prevost, Gagnebin and Zehe) said that the theory was found inedependent by Le Sage. Before we haven't another reputable source, the article must reflect that.
Third: Fatio (sometimes) actually spoke about the "elastic" nature of his corpuscules - it's obvious, that Le Sage and Prevost simply misunderstood Fatio, because they said, the major difference between the theories was the perfect inelasticity of Le Sage's corpuscules - which isn't entirely wrong. It must also be recognized, that the sections about the nature of collisions are the most incomprehensible parts of Fatio's theory. He reformulated his thoughts about this subject his whole life long. Therefore I don't think it's necessary to critizize Le Sage too much.
Fourth: Is the history of the theory completely wrong? Of course not. Because unfortunately Fatio never published his work - except his latin poem, which was also ignored by his contemporaries. So the name "Le Sage gravity" ist historically correct, although I must confess I don't like the name very much --D.H 17:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
SCJ1, rather than trying to rebut all of your points, which we have already discussed too much, let me just say that Dietmar seems to have a plan to do a major reworking of the article and maybe we should all sit back and see what he comes up with. From what I understand from Dietmar, however, the article could grow significantly in length and there could be a need at some point to split it into two or more articles. In general, if we expand the historical side, I would say we also would need to also expand the 'modern' side.MRE 20:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for reverting Lesagian's latest edit: (1) The independence of Le Sage's work from Fatio is not in evidence, and in fact we know that Le Sage continued to work on "his" theory for many decades AFTER he had acquired Fatio's papers, and everything that Le Sage ever wrote was also contained in those papers of Fatio, so to claim that Le Sage's work was independent of Fatio is silly. It makes the article look dumb, to spell out all the facts showing non-independence, and then to state that they were independent. The most you could plausibly claim is that the very first thoughts that Le Sage had on the subject (as a little boy) were independent of Fatio. (Much circustantial evidence suggests that even this claim is false, but at least it isn't self-evidently false.) Let's just agree that, at best, this is a controversial point, so we should simply let the facts speak for themselves. State when Le Sage "published" his expositions, and when he acquired Fatio's papers, and then let anyone with a brain draw their own conclusions. (2) Le Sage's theory does not reproduce Newton's gravitational force equation EXACTLY, because the F at time t in Newton's equation corresponds to the r at the same time t, whereas in Fatio-Le Sage it corresponds to two different times, and indeed this aberration effect is one of the main things that empirically falsifies Le Sage theory. There are other approximations as well, so it's misleading to blandly state that Fatio-LeSage reproduces Newton. The prior wording was better, so I reverted to it.SJC1 05:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be best if everyone could let Dietmar do his revision without editing on top of it. Otherwise, a better approach for Dietmar would be to do his revision in a 'sandbox' version away from interventions.MRE 15:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
My edits on the Fatio section are finished. The next will be Le Sage...this will take some time. --D.H 17:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Fatio Section

The Bopp edition of Fatio's paper contains two different figures labelled "Figure I", and both of them are included in the article here. I believe the first Figure I is the one that Fatio actually drew (a hand-drawn copy of this figure is given in Gagnibin's edition), whereas the second "Figure I", which is entitled "The Net structure of Molecules" seems slightly out of place. Also, I think it is mis-titled, because it doesn't illustrate the net or cage structure, it is instead an illustration of a shape that (according to Fatio) presents the same projected surface area in all directions. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually have the property that Fatio claims, although you can sort of see why he thought it did. Anyway, my question is whether the second Fig I was introduced by Bopp, or if Fatio's paper really did have two different Fig I. If it was introduced by Bopp, it should be identified as such. Also, the title should be changed, because it doesn't illustrate the "net" structure. (The "net" structure actually iss illustrated by a figure drawn by Fatio and included in the Gagniben edition.)SJC1 03:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Another comment: The article refers to a brief correspondence between Fatio and Leibniz, and then says "Although Leibniz was interested in further communications, Fatio interrupted the exchange to him." Was this in 1694? If so, then Westfall says it was Leibniz who discontinued the correspondence, sensing that Fatio was no longer in Newton's inner circle. SJC1 06:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Before I answer to your comments: I have made a special site for the Bopp edition. Now, every single page can be openend separately. On pp. 19-22 is an introduction by Bopp (in German). Fatio's paper starts at the end of p. 22 (in French).
All of the illustrations in the Bopp edition were made by Fatio and only reproduced by Bopp. On p. 67 and p. 68 you can see eleven figures made by Fatio - there is the "first" Fig. I and the description of this illustration can be found on p. 32. The "second" Fig. 1 can be found on p. 38, and the illustration is described by Fatio at the beginning of the same page. But I don't know exactly, why the picture is called Fig.1 as well - maybe because it's in close connection to Fig. 1 on p. 67? Or Bopp simply gave the wrong name....
Maybe the name "net structure" is inapropriate, "Structure of matter" would possibly be a better name...--D.H 08:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Leibniz and Fatio: Fatio wrote in letter no. LXXXII to Huygens in October 9, 1694, that Leibniz wanted to start an letter exchange with him, but he (Fatio) hasn't gone into the discussion with "sufficient eagerness", so obviously Fatio believed, it was his (Fatio's) own debt, that the exchange was interrupted. Therefore H. Zehe thinks, that this and Fatio's ressentiments against Leibniz were the reasons for this interruption. Here is an online link to Fatio's letter: [1] (If it doesn't work properly, click the reload button in your browser.)
Here is what Fatio wrote: Ms. Leibniz a taché d'établir une correspondance de lettres avec moi. Quelque satisfaction que j'eusse pu trouver en ce commerce je ne l'ai pas accepté avec l'empressement que je devois ne me sentant pas à beaucoup pres autant de dilligence pour ecrire des lettres que j'en connois a cet Illustre. --D.H 17:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the two "Figure I"s, the text specifically refers to each of the other figures, by name, but it never refers to a figure when describing the ring with cycloid cross-section. Nothing in the text specifically points to that figure, and this is unique among all the figures. Also, all the other figures are simple two-dimensional line schematics, whereas the "2nd Fig 1" depicts a three-dimensional object. Also, it doesn't any any letters to identify different parts of the drawing (unlike all the other figures). Finally, its numerical designation is duplicated with another figure (one which IS specifically pointed to by the text). All in all, the "2nd Fig 1" seems distinctly incongruous.

Regarding all the other figures, you mentioned that Fatio made all of them. Do you now this for a fact? I have seen the 1st Fig 1 drawn by Fatio's own hand, and he doesn't seem to have been an accomplished draftsman or script writer, whereas the drawing in the Bopp edition seem to have been prepared mechanically. Remember, we are supposedly looking at a COPY made by Bernoulli, and I'm pretty sure he didn't have a Xerox machine, so I presume he made the copy by hand. This makes it seem even less likely that we are looking at Fatio's actual illustrations in his own hand. In the introduction, Bopp talks about "recovering" the first Figure, but it's unclear to me what he means.

Regarding who discontinued the 1694 correspondence between Leibniz and Fatio, I can only say that Richard Westfall says the Leibniz told Huygens he "sensed something strange" in Fatio's letter. At this time, Fatio was trying to pretend he was still intimate with Newton, when in fact the relationship with Newton had been over for nearly a year. Westfall suggests that Leibniz sensed this from Fatio's evasiveness about Newton, so he (Leibniz) decided to discontinue the correspondence. Perhaps it was a mutual decision.

I agree that the caption of the 2nd Fig 1 in the article should be changed.. or else it should be removed entirely. It isn't very significant to Fatio's theory, and he just discusses it briefly as one possible shape. If you consider how much work it will be to correctly explain what that figure depicts, and compare with the benefit of including it in the first place, I think it would be best to omit it. SJC1 19:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Another comment: The article says the Bopp edition is superior to Gagnebin, but this is not the opinion of all scholars. For example, Domson wrote (in 1971):

"In addition to the more complete Gagnebin version of Fatio's treatise published in 1949, there is another that can be found in the Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha. It was published in 1929. See Karl Bopp... The Gagnebin version is more illuminating, insofar as it contains Fatio's revisions over a fifty-year period."

Having read both versions, I'd say they each have value, but I tend to agree with Domson that the Gagnebin version is closer to a "definitive" edition presenting Fatio's final view, whereas Bopp's edition is more like an early draft in some respects. Of some of the passages are repeated verbatim in both versions. SJC1 05:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

1) Complete version: I'm surprised that Domson thinks the Gagnebin edition is "more complete" as Bopp's one. To give a more detailed account: Fatio mentioned 5 manuscripts of his paper.
FO 1 is Fatio's "No. 1" and bears the signatures by Newton etc.; FO 2 is Fatio's "No. 2" and is a extended version of FO 1.; FO 3 is Fatio's "No. 3" and contains some additions to FO 1.; FO 4 is a copy (or compilation) of his 3 manuscripts made by Fatio's brother Jean-Christophe.; FO 5 is also copy (or compilation) of his 3 manuscripts, which was sent to Bernoulli, and according to Fatio it was "copied by Jacques Bernoulli...in Feb. 1701." The only surviving (and complete) copy of those manuscripts is FO 5 (also called the Basel manuscript), which is the basis of the Bopp edition.
And there were 6 fragments of Fatio's work, which were in the possession of Le Sage:
FG 1 contains the last 4 pages of FO 1 (including the signatures of Newton, Halley and Huygens).; FG 2 is (most probably) a piece of FO 2.; FG 3 contains additions to FO 1 and is for sure the last version of his theory (composed around 1743).; FG 4 is identical to great parts of Problem IV in the Basel manuscript.; FG 5 is (most probably) a piece of F0 4. (Containing parts of Problem II, III, IV); FG 6 is another copy, which source is unclear (containing some parts of chapters 5-36 of the Gagnebin edition and the corresponding parts of the Basel manuscript.)
Afterwards, Zehe gave a detailed comparison between the editions. Although he called the work of Gagnebin "commendable", he came to a very critical conclusion:

"Obviously the existence of the Basle manuscript FB or its edition by Bopp wasn't known to Gagnebin, therefore he hasn't given attention to the manuscripts FG 4, FG 5 and FG 6 and hasn't even mention them. Furthermore the value of Gagnebin's commendable edition is detracted by a very insufficient transcription of the manuscript FG 1. As long there is no really critical edition of Fatio's manuscripts, the only base for an interpretation of Fatio's theory therefore is Bopp's edition of the Basle manuscript as the most complete one."

Of course, there are some corrections made by Fatio, which were made after writing the Basel manuscript, and a final version of Fatio's paper should include them - but this version doesn't exist at this time, so I think we should follow Zehe.
2.) Fig. 1: a) Zehe gave a description of all figures in the edition which shows, that every figure is also contained in the manuscript from 1701 - including the figure on p.38, so the picture is authentical. But your right - it's obvious that Bopp used some mechanical equipment to reproduce Fatio's illustrations in better quality - nonetheless thery are only reproductions, not recreations. So I think we should leave the "2nd Fi.1" in the article. But I've changed the text a little bit.
b) Bopp doesn't talk about "recovering" the first Figure, he only alluded to the illustration in Fatio's letter to Huygens (2570; March 6, 1690; p. 385). He wrote:

Wir finden in diesem Briefe die Figur l des Traité wieder und ganze Strecken wörtlicher Übereinstimmung mit unserer Edition desselben, was wir besonders betonen mochten.

My translation:

In this letter we find again the figure l of the Traité [Bopp edition] and also great parts of literal agreement with our edition, what we might emphasize particularly.

3.) Leibniz: Obviously the reasons for the interruption of their letter exchange are not exactly known, therefore I've formulated the text a little bit more neutral. --D.H 16:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the 2nd Figure 1 is still mis-labeled. If this Figure is going to remain in the article, I think the caption and description should be accurate. It doesn't depict "net structure". It depicts a torroidal solid ring, whose specific shape give it (according to Fatio) a special property. The problem I have with including this in the article is that I think he was mistaken, and the shape does not have the property he describes... it is off by a factor of 2 (coincidentally the same factor that his expression for the gas pressure is off, although for a different reason). I really question whether it's worth going to so much trouble to explain a mistake that has no particular relevance to his overall theory. But, as I said, if the Figure is going to be kept, the description and caption need to be accurate. At present they are wrong.

I also seriously question whether that drawing was in Fatio's paper, because the paper specifically references, by number, each and every one of the other drawings in the text, but there is absolutely no mention or hint of a drawing of this particular torroidal shape. Fatio described this shape verbally, and had ample opportunity to refer to a drawing if there was such a drawing in his paper, but he doesn't. Also, as I said before, the character of this drawing is totally dis-similar to the characters of all the other drawings. And then we have the fact that the Figure number is a duplicate of an existing Figure. One possibility is that Bernoulli drew this figure himself. It's funny, because when I saw this figure in Bopp's edition it looked sort of familiar, but I knew it wasn't in Fatio's paper, so I went back and looked at my own notes that I had written when I first read Fatio's paper, and found that I had drawn that Figure myself, based on Fatio's text description. Bernoulli might well have done exactly the same thing.

I also think that the sub-section of the article entitled "Problem I" should be given a more descriptive title.SJC1 16:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The new image next to the "2nd figure 1" is referenced to Bopp, but I don't see that image in Bopp's edition. If it's going to be included, I think the source should be referenced.

Also, the 2nd figure 1 is STILL mis-identified. It does not depict any kind of net structure. It is a solid shape that Fatio claimed had a special geometrical property. It should either be described accurately or else removed. SJC1 02:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand, why you are always repeating, that this is not a net structure. Fatio himself wrote on top of p.38:

If someone want a spherical or any other such net, which is put together from different solid circles or rings which are infinitely thin in proportion to their diameters....how can be achieved that this net turns an equally big surface towards all sides?

Fatio clearly talks about a net, which consists of "different solid circles or rings".
Additionally, I also gave references to both pictures. --D.H 16:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
We have a lot of detail on Fatio now. I would say too much. In addition, the Fatio section is stylistically at odds with the rest of the article. It seems to have been dropped into the middle. Is anyone planning to fix this is up?MRE 18:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

According to Domson, Fatio first communicated his mechanical model of gravity to the Royal Society in 1688, contrary to the present article, which says his first communication on this subject was in 1690. (He was actually put off the track for quite a while by Huygens' criticism about condensation, and didn't figure out how to answer that criticism until 1690.)

As to the second figure 1 not being a net structure, your quotation proves my point. He is claiming you can construct a net structure out of very thin rings, but then he realizes that most solid shapes, unlike spheres, don't present the same projected area in all directions. In particular, a typical torus does not present the same projected area in all directions. So, Fatio off-handedly suggests that a solid ring with the specific shape he described (with the cycloid cross-sections) would present the same area to all directions. This is what he means when he talks about "turns an equally big surface towards all sides". It is irrelevant that he says you could put many of these together to form a net. The figure does NOT show any net structure. It shows a single solid structure that Fatio claims presents "the same area to all sides". You can see why he might think this, because the length of a cycloid base is PI times its height, and when you view the ring from the side versus the top you get a factor of PI. However, with TWO cycloids meeting at their base, the thickness is really 2*PI. Furthermore, even if you correct this, you can only get a shape that has the same projected area in two directions, not all directions. But this is all beside the point, because Fatio later says (in effect) Who is to say God is not capable of creating solids with the same areas in all directions? So he basically just tosses it back to God. This is all just a tangent, and not centeral to Fatio's theory. That figure is just a misleading distraction for this article. And it very clearly does NOT depict a net structure... as your own quote confirms.SJC1 03:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. According to Zehe, the theory which was outlined by Fatio before the Royal Society in 1688, wasn't Fatio's one, it was Fatio's elaboration of Huygens model. In 1687, Fatio learned about that theory and made a copy of it. In July 7, 1688, Fatio was asked by the Royal Society to outline Huygens model of gravity. That was done by Fatio a week later on July 14, 1688. A handwritten sketch of this lecture can be found in Geneva. This lecture had 2 parts: First he presented Huygens' ether-vortex model. Second: He was trying to explain Newton's law of attraction by expanding Huygens model. Now, the basic conecpt is similar to his later model. Frist, we have rectilinear motion of the particles, but through some interactions they would form a vortex around the bodies. So, I don't think we should include this in the article, because there is no need to include the Huygens/Fatio ether-vortex model.
  2. It's true, that Fatio had problems with the condensation of particles in his theory for years, but this has nothing to do with the lecture before the Royal Sociaty in 1688. It's also not correct, that the condensation-problem was based on Huygens objection. Fatio only supposed in his letter in 1690, that Huygens maybe rejected Fatio's model for the same reasens (condensation) for which Fatio himself recected it for a long time.
  3. I think one picture is enough, so before beginning an endless debate on the net structure, I've removed the "2nd Fig.1". --D.H 18:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I now have included a free online version of the Gagnebin edition: De la Cause de la Pesanteur. For an introduction by Gagnebin, see Introduction. --D.H 09:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Le Sage Section

It seems to me the "Basic Concept" section of the Le Sage section is almost entirely a repetition of the basic concept section of the Fatio section, which is already a repetition of the "Basic Concept" section of the overall article. We end up saying essentially the same thing three times. Two is plenty. I think in the Le Sage discussion it should simply be stated that Le Sage's theory was a less sophisticated version of Fatio's theory, and that Le Sage contributed nothing new. Also, the statement attributed to Wolf (as I recall) claiming that we would not know anything about Fatio if Le Sage hadn't mentioned him, is simply wrong. Now, we could go to the trouble of citing numerous references disproving Wolf's ridiculous statement, or we could just omit the ridiculous statement. The fact is that Fatio (and his quasi-Cartesian mechanistic theory of gravity) has always been well-known to Newtonian scholars and other students of physics in the 17th and 18th centuries, and none of them cite Le Sage as the source of this information. Furthermore, this very article bases its discussion of Fatio on a copy of his paper preserved by Bernoulli, so it obviously did not rely on Le Sage.

The historical record shows that Le Sage contributed only self-serving MISinformation to the memory of Fatio. Also, the idea (repeated in the article) that Le Sage and Prevost simply mis-understood about the inelastic collisions in Fatio's model is extremely generous. It's inconceivable that even a marginally competent reader could fail to see that Fatio's model involved inelastic collisions. Fatio made this abundantly clear in the papers that were found among Le Sage's possessions.

So, I recommend deleting the statement that says we know about Fatio only through Le Sage.SJC1 06:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The statements of many authors in the 19th century on Fatio's theory are based on the description of Prevost in the preface of the "Deux traites de physique mecanique" (1818), which are quoted by Wolf(1862), Kelvin(1872) or Zenneck(1901). I'm not aware of any author in that time period, who actually discuss Fatio's theory independently from Prevost - because simply there were not papers of Fatio available (except some widely unknown letters to Huygens and Bernoulli). In you have other sources from that period, please show them to us. Ok, the statement that "we" only know through Le Sage from Fatio's theory is wrong, because it is only correct for many 19th century authors, so I changed the text.
You wrote: "Also, the idea (repeated in the article) that Le Sage and Prevost simply mis-understood about the inelastic collisions in Fatio's model is extremely generous." It's a citation of Zehe, who gave the most detailed account on Fatio's theory which ever was written. And I don't think it's too "generous", because Zehe also said, that Le Sage (although he knew Fatio's papers) didn't reach his level - I think that's very critical and it is also mentioned in the article.
So what have Le Sage and Prevost said about Fatio's theory? Le Sage wrote in his letter to Lambert: "Nicolas Fatio de Duillier had created a theory in 1689, which is so similar to mine, that it only differed in the elasticity, which he has given his intensely agitated matter." This was obviously repeated by Prevost in his preface. The fist part is true, the second part is wrong - and exactly that is pointed out in the article.
Le Sage's and Prevost's wrong claim about elasticity had an disturbing effect, but on the other hand they also said, the Fatio's theory was perfectly similar to Le Sage's - so it's hard to criticize him....So in the 19th century when this theory had its "highwater mark", it was Prevost's description of Fatio's theory which was known - and the only reason why Fatio was even mentioned by those authors above, was because of Le Sage and Prevost.
Of course, the reception of Fatio's theory changed in the middle of the 20th century, when Gagnebin published his edition (which were based on fragments collected by Le Sage - so without Le Sage, no Gagnebin edition would exist). Additionally, as far as I have seen the Bopp edition based on Bernoulli's copy seems to be widely unknown until today. It's also very interesting, the those authors, who knew Fatio's theory best - Gagnebin and Zehe - never accused Le Sage of not having found his theory independently.
I agree, that the “basic concept” is only a repetition. That should be shortened. --D.H 18:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The current article states that Le Sage always strongly denied that he was influenced by reading Fatio's papers. I think a primary reference should be provided for this statement. In fact, I think it would be good to let him speak for himself, by quoting one of his proteststations of independence, and giving the circumstances, i.e., was it in response to challenges that he "always strongly" asserted his independence? If so, who challenged him? SJC1 07:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact, that Le Sage strongly denied any accusation of not having found his ideas inedependently from Fatio or Cramer is clearly pointed out by Wolf (and Zehe). Especially Wolf, p. 182. On the contrary, Le Sage (citing Fatio!) accused Cramer of having taken his ideas directly from Fatio. It's interesting, what Le Sage said about "Cramer's" theory:
Et même dans la fausse supposition que j’aurais eu quelque connaissance des Thèses de Mr. Cramer, avant que d’imaginer mon propre Système : Il n’aura pas fait autre chose, que de m’indiquer une Mine précieuse, dont il ne sentait point le prix : Tandis que moi, j’aurais pris le peine de l’exploiter....
Translation: Even if one falsely assumes that I would have had any knowledge of Mr Cramer's thesis before I thought up my own system, this would have done nothing else but to draw my attention to a gold mine whose value he [Cramer] didn't recognize at all, while I was undergoing the effort to exploit it....
Sometimes I think Le Sage's statement of the "vague and ill-assured fashion" of his predecessors was pointed directly to Cramer....--D.H 18:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The same letter from Euler to Le Sage is also reprinted by Wolf, but the phrase "Euler became exasperated with the persistent Le Sage" is too harsh, so I changed it into "But finally Euler wrote". --D.H 18:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I was (and still am) seeking a PRIMARY source for the assertion that Le Sage strongly denied being influenced by FATIO (not Cramer, who may well have taken his ideas directly from Fatio). I'm not asking what Wolf and Zehe say, but for an example or quote of Le Sage strongly denying the influence of Fatio.

Also, it would be worth noting the context of Le Sage's denial of borrowing his idea from Cramer. It would be odd to issue such a denial unless he had been accused of it, but you have argued that there is no evidence anyone ever suggested Le Sage borrowed his ideas. So who was he addressing when he made the above-quoted denial? SJC1 00:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

1) I'm also seeking for primary sources, but they are hard to find. According to Zehe, Prevost reported in his Le Sage biography (Notice de la vie et des ecrits the George-Louis Le sage de Geneve, 1805, p. 164-165), that Le Sage made a "certificate" signed by some of his scholar-friends, in which is written:
"that Le Sage before end of march 1766...not have seen any paper of Mr. Nicolas Fatio on the cause of gravity, and that we have found nothing in those papers which was wasn't treated by him [Le Sage] in a more detailed way."
It's obvious, that the phrase "those papers" in the second part of the sentence is related to the papers, which was acquired by Le Sage after 1766. Unfortunately, Zehe didn't say when this certificate was made, and he wasn't quoting the complete section. I must say, that this certificate puzzles me, because Zehe also cited Prevost in the same biography (Notice, p. 65), that Abauzit submitted a copy of a Fatio-manuscript (which was named by Zehe "FG 6") on 21. May 1758 to Le Sage. This manuscript contains the following sections (The text is very similar to the corresponding parts of the Bopp edition; for the numbering, see the Gagnebin edition): 5, 7-10, 12-16, 19-23, 27-36. The manuscript ends with the beginning of section 37 and directly appended is Problem II (p. 47, l. 21 - p. 48, l. 26 of the Bopp edition, so it ends where in the Bopp edition the construction of the thermometer is beginning).
So Prevost says on p. 65, that Le Sage was in possession of a Fatio-manuscript in 21. May 1758. If the date is true, Le Sage was around that time in possession of essential parts of Fatio's work. But in the same book on pp. 164-165, Prevost brings a certificate which says, that Le Sage wasn't in possession of any paper before March 1766. So if this is correct, it would be problematic for Le Sage, because althoug he wrote his most detailed exposition “Essai de Chymie Mecanique” in 1758, many important additions to the printed version where made by him (according to Chabot), between 1758 and 1764 when he was already in possession of the Abauzit paper. Unfortunately, Zehe says nothing to this contradiction. So it would be good, if someone is in possession of Prevost's Le Sage biography, so we can clarify this. I'm only in possession of a summary of the book by John Playfair in 1807.
It is also unknown, how disturbing the mental deficiencies of Le Sage were on his reception of Fatio’s papers. According to Prevost and Playfair, Le Sage attributed to himself “an excessive weakness of the memory” and “a great incapacity of continued attention”. So Le Sage was forced to write his thoughts on cards, because he simply forgot everything. We were told by Gagnebin and Evans, that there were still about 35000 (!) sheets in the Geneva archive. Often he repeated his writings, because he had forgotten about his earlier accounts. And this is also the reason, why Le Sage never completed his main works – neither his work on particle gravity, nor his history of gravity, nor his Fatio biography and so on….
2) But we must be careful, not to make any “original research” in this article. What we know is, that neither Wolf nor Gagnebin nor Zehe accused Le Sage of borrowing his ideas and I'm not aware of any scholar, who is suggesting otherwise. Maybe there was actually someone who accused Le Sage in the middle of the 18th century (I don't know who), or Le Sage only wanted to avoid any accusation with his certification, I don't know. --D.H 11:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I moved the Fatio-Lesage discussion passage into the basic concept section, because it's better if the elasticity/inelasticity comparison is made after presenting Le Sages concept. --D.H 16:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Kelvin/Maxwell

I agree with the Fatio-related edits in the Kelvin-section. But the article says: "Subsequent workers pointed out that this rested on an invalid application of Clausius's hypothesis on the partition of kinetic energy in a gas at equilibrium". But no reference is given für this claim. Who are those "subsequent workers"?

I've deleted the phrase "with his characteristic sarcasm" in the Maxwell-section. The readers should decide for themselfs, what is sarcastic or not. --D.H 09:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Action and Re-Action versus Mass Dependence

The recent addition of a section entitled "mass dependence" concludes with a quote from Lesage asserting equal and opposite forces. Two comments: First, the equality of action and re-action is separate from the dependence of force on mass (rather than surface area), so this quote doesn't belong here. Second, as Darwin showed, Le Sage theory does NOT yield equal action and re-action except in very special circumstances, i.e., with total absorption. So, if the claim about equal action and re-action is going to remain in the article, it should be accompanied with a note, stating this this claim is now known to be incorrect, and reference Darwin.

By the way, regarding Maxwell's sarcasm, it isn't entirely reasonable for readers to "decide for themselves" if he was being sarcastic, because the reader doesn't have the benefit of knowing all of Maxwell's writings, and therefore is not in a position to judge whether he was being sarcastic. The article is supposed to inform. This is the burden of any author who includes brief quotes, removed from the context of the larger bodies of work from which they are drawn. The context of a quote must be given. The average reader is unaware of how Maxwell habitually wrote in this tounge-in-cheek manner about the kookier ideas of his friends Tait, Thomson, Spencer and others. He was a subtle, sarcastic, and ironic writer, and anyone familiar with Maxwell's writings can recognize it a mile away... but the typical reader of this article is not likely to be familiar with Maxwell's unique style, so he is likely to accept the little snippet sound-bite at face value, and then simply be baffled when the next quote shows how little regard Maxwell had for the theory right from the start. It isn't inappropriate to inform the reader that Maxwell was being sarcastic. SJC1 09:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Because the equal-fall passage is deleted, the Le Sage quote actually makes no sense in the section, so I deleted it. But maybe it would be helpful, if one discusses the issue in the Darwin section?
Regarding Maxwell: I'm not perfectly sure whether the statement of Maxwell was so sarcastic as you propose. If one looks at the detailed and long anylasis in his Atom article (and some of his other writings), one can see that Maxwell took the idea (at least for some time) seriously - also if one considers his good relationship to Kelvin and Tait. But I think the passage should be expanded and should better reflect Maxwell's thermodynamic argument. I also asked for a reference of the "subsequent worker" who falsified Kelvin's application of Clausius. It there anything out there? Otherwise we should delete the statement. --D.H 09:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Kelvin, Limitless Free Energy, and Clausius

As I recall, the section on Kelvin originally included the quote of how, according to Kelvin's understanding, and his application of Clausius's principle, it would be possible to construct a perpetual motion machine and extract limitless free energy from the ultramundane flux. But some editors objected to including this aspect of Kelvin's understanding (even though a direct quote was provided), because they thought it makes him look foolish, and obviously implies that his understanding of the thermodynamics of the situation was incorrect, or, at the very least, shows that his ideas were inconsistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Clausius's principle, on the other hand, is entirely consistent with the first and second laws of thermodynamics - in fact, it is a consequence of those laws. It would be easy to provide quotes confirming this, and therefore Thomson's application of Clausius's principle was self-evidently erroneous. (It's also easy to see WHY it was erroneous.) But still, some editors wanted to soften how foolish Kelvin looks in the article, so they demoted his "perpetual motion machine" to a footnote. But this left the article seeming to endorse Kelvin's obviously false claim, so someone (not me) added the comment that "subsequent workers" had falsified Kelvin's application of Clausius' principle. The difficulty here is that, like all Le Sage literature, it simply has not been taken seriously enough by serious scientists to make it worthwhile to publish critiques. The only explicit commentary on Thomson's use of Clausius that I've seen is Maxwell's wry comment that Thomson "has also suggested the possibility of the vortex corpuscle regaining its swiftness and losing part of its vibratory agitation by communion with its kindred corpuscles in infinite space". But here again the reader must know Maxwell to understand the significance of this comment.

Perhaps the solution is to return to the original text, which puts Thomson's limitless free energy and perpetual motion machine back into the article. Say something like

Thomson also asserted, based on his understanding of the applicability of Clausius's principle, that it would be possible to extract limitless amounts of free energy from the ultramundane flux, and described as perpetual motion machine to accomplish this. Other researcher's, however, have asserted that Clausius's principle, correctly applied, cannot lead to any production of infinite free energy. [Here there are plentiful references that can be provided, if needed.]

Frankly, I think the existing wording of the article is better than this. At SOME point people ought to agree that we can appeal to simple logic and reason, rather than going through these verbal contortions... but if that's what people prefer, so be it.SJC1 18:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Improved Figure for Mass Proportionality?

The current figure P5 supposedly represents how matter is mostly empty space, so the force is proportional to the mass, but the actual figure shows a solid blue sphere, just like the previous figures. I think a more useful figure would be to show small blue dots, sparsely separated, composing the sphere. This would illustrate what is described in the text.SJC1 02:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

A new "P5" for mass proportionality is added. --D.H 17:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Particle Gravity?

The current article says this theory is commonly called (in the scientific community) "particle gravity". Does anyone have a reference for this? (I've never heard the term "particle gravity" used to describe this kind of theory.)SJC1 00:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Predictions: None

I think some words are needed at the beginning of the "Predictions of Le Sage's Theory" section, or else the title of the section should be changed, because the content of the section contradicts the title. As the reader takes each sub-paragraph in turn, he learns that the theory would lead one to expect drag on moving objects, but we can adjust the free parameters of the theory so that the drag is imperceptibly small.

So the theory makes no definite falsifiable prediction of drag.

Likewise aberration.

Likewise limited range.

Likewise shielding.

Likewise mass accretion.

So, when the reader reaches the end of this section, which is entitled "Predictions of the Theory", he has found that... well... in point of fact... there are none. The title is false advertising. At the very least, I think a short paragraph should be added to the beginning of the "Predictions" section to acknowledge that the theory suggests in a QUALITATIVE way several effects, but ALL those effects are known to be absent (to the precision that we can measure). In a QUANTITATIVE sense the theory does not make any predictions, simply because it contains enough free parameters to effectively negate each and every one of the qualitative predictions.

On the other hand, there are a couple of "predictions" that ought to be mentioned but are not mentioned in the current article. One is the prediction that matter is mostly empty space, and could be penetrated freely by suitable particles. This is a genuine "score" for the theory (even though it is not unique to Le Sage theories... the same "prediction" arises in many other theories, going back even to ancient times). The other is the "prediction" of extreme heating. This is one of the few predictions of Le Sage theory that can be put on a quantitative basis, and of course it is drastically in conflict with observation. Granted one can try to introduce still MORE free variables (a la Kelvin) in order to drive this prediction down to an imperceptible level, but this again just makes the point that the theory HAS NO definite predictions at all... once we have introduced sufficient free variables to drive each of the natural predictions down below the level of detectability.SJC1 22:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the prediction of "mostly empty space" and therefore the analogy to neutrinos is a major prediction of the theory and should be described in some detail. Also a thermodynamic passage is needed in the predictions section (like I did in the german version). Maybe we should call the section "Predictions and critique of the theory". And we should move the section directly under "the basic theory" section, because now we have a basic section, than comes the long historic part and than the predictions section - that fits not very well.
So we should split the article in two main sections - a thematic section with the basic theory and the predictions and criticism. And a historical part with the early development and the Kelvin-Poincare section. --D.H 09:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I've included a passage concerning the analogy to neutrinos and a section related on kinetic theory of gases (with some repetitions of the Kelvin/Poincare section) - this was also a major prediction, because many things introduced by Fatio and Le Sage were later included in the kinetic theory - also the analogy to penetrational em-waves and a thermodynamics section ist needed.... --D.H 17:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Russell and Equivalence Principle AGAIN!

Some editors apparently aren't aware that the whole topic of Russell and the equivalence principle was thoroughly discussed, with an careful examination of Russell's paper, in which he explicitly acknowledges that shielding is logically imcompatible with the equivalence principle. These uninformed editors are now trying to re-hash the same old issue that was settled conclusively months ago. I suggest that these editors first acquaint themselves with the literature, and stop their efforts to insert self-serving crackpot gibberish into this article.SJC1 19:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW - If anyone is interested: I found a more recent paper by R. COISSON, G. MAMBRIANI and P. PODINI, A new interpretation of Quirino Majorana’s experiments on gravitation and a proposal for testing his results. Like Russell they also excluded the possibility of shielding. They say, following Brillouin and de Broglie, that Majorana's experiment maybe could explained by stating "that potential energy must be shared and incorporated into the masses of interacting bodies". Although it's very interesting, I don't think that belongs into the article... --D.H 19:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I left SJC's former version unchanged, but included a passage with actual citations of Russell, showing that he strictly denied any relation between graviational shielding and Majorana's experiment. And also his proposal of variable masses has nothing to do with graviational shielding. Also I made it clear, that in standard physics Russell's proposal as well as any gravitational shielding is not accepted. I hope this will end this senseless conflict. --D.H 10:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Russell clearly states on page 339, section 4,
We are forced therefore to the conclusion that upon the hypothesis that there exists an absorption of gravitational force in matter, without change in its inertial mass, the coefficient of absorption cannot exceed one ten-thousandth of that derived by Majorana from his experiments, and must be hopelessly beyond the reach of investigation in the laboratory.
He further states in section 5 pages 342-343,
Strange as this notion may seem, it is not inherently absurd. Indeed, if the phenomena of gravitation and inertia may be accounted for by assuming that the four-dimensional "world-" possesses certain non-Euclidean properties, or "curvature," both in the presence of matter and remote from it, it is not very surprising if the curvature induced by one mass of matter should be modified to some degree by the superposition of the curvature due to another, so that the effects were not exactly additive.

This passage clearly invokes the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass. The modifications I made to the section in question leaves the existing passages intact. It just explicitly points out the explict assumption and dependence on the of independence in the behavior of inertial mass and gravitational mass in order to obtain any observation of such shielding effects. As discussed in his paper, Section 5 points out that, lacking such independence, both masses (intertial/gravitational) would be equally affected resulting in no difference in observed responses! LeSagian 20:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Neither of your quotes provides any support for your crackpot belief that gravitational shielding is consistent with the equivalence principle. The first quote you cited simply explains why Majorana could not possibly have been seeing genuine gravitational shielding, precisely because of the conflict with the equivalence principle. The second passage you quoted simply says that gravity may not be linear... well, news flash, gravity is NOT linear... but this in no way contradicts the equivalence principle, nor does it entail "shielding".
Please stop trying to insert crackpot content into this article. Thanks.SJC1 02:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

@LeSagian: Although the issue is already disussed on this discussion page, let us see what exactly is in Russell's paper!

p. 339: We are forced therefore to the conclusion that upon the hypothesis that there exists an absorption of gravitational force in matter without change in its inertial mass, the coefficient of absorption cannot exceed one ten-thousandth of that derived by Majorana from his experiments, and must be hopelessly beyond the reach of investigation in the laboratory. There is nothing really new in this conclusion, or in the reasoning by which it has been reached. All depends upon the old and familiar proposition that the motions of the planets prove that their gravitational and inertial mass are strictly proportional to one another, at least within a few parts in a million. Any influence which modifies one must alter the other in the same proportion.

Well, Russell said that to maintain stable orbits, any change in the gravitational mass(caused by absorption or any other reason) must be accompanied with a corresponding change of the inertial mass. And "there is nothing really new".

p.340: Accepting this we must assume in section 3 that the accelerations are inversely proportional to the apparent masses, m, instead of the true mass, M. It would then follow that all astronomical motions will take place in accordance with the Newtonian law, but that the apparent masses will everywhere appear in the place of the true masses. The only exceptions occur when one body intervenes directly between two others. The resulting effects are negligible for the planets and small for the moon; but in the case of the tides they are important.

This leads Russell to the following statement:

p.342: The assumption of an absorption of gravitational force in passing through the earth leads therefore to discrepancies in the case of the tides which cannot be removed by any admissible assumption regarding changes in the inertial mass of the attracted water.

After that, Russell summarized his efforts in section 5:

p.342: It appears therefore that the assumption that gravitational force is weakened in passing through matter must be definitely abandoned. But what then becomes of Professor Majorana's long and careful series of experiments? If their result is accepted, it seems necessary to interpret it as showing that the masses of one body (his suspended sphere of lead) was diminished by the presence of another large mass (the surrounding mercury); that the effect was a true change in the mass (since inertial mass and gravitational mass are all the kinds of mass that we know of); and that it depended on the proximity of fhe larger mass and not upon any screening action upon the earth's gravitation.

And that is exactly that, what now is in the article! So after excluding the possibility of any connection between the change of mass and gravitational shielding, Russell states on his own, new proposal of mass variation:

Strange as this notion may seem, it is not inherently absurd. Indeed, if the phenomena of gravitation and inertia may be accounted for by assuming that the four-dimensional "world" possesses certain non-Euclidean properties, or "curvature", both in the presence of matter and remote from it, it is not very surprising if the curvature induced by one mass of mattcr should be modified to some degree by the superposition of the curvature due to another, so that the effects were not exactly additive. A great variety of assumptions may be made regarding such an influence and many of these might have the advantage of giving a conservative field of force, which Majorana did not.

But this, according to Russell's own words, has nothing to do with gravitational shielding. As far as I see, the only one, who saw a connection, was Radzievskii. But Radzievskii stands against mainstream, which says that gravitational shielding is violating EP. So what more can we say?? (BTW: Radzievskii was wrong, because Andrade Martins shows in his second paper in Pushing Gravity, p. 257, that it makes a difference, on which side the shielding body is placed - and this is valid for Majorana's and Le Sage's theory!) --D.H 11:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Resistance of Medium

Maybe it would be helpful, if the "drag" section is expanded. Because we have some explanations in the article.

  1. Now, we have Fatio, who says that the bigger the velocity or the density of the medium, the greater the resistance. So he was forced to decrease one of those variables (but to fulfil Newton's postulate that space have to be free of matter, Fatio decided to increase the velocity and therefore decrease the density).
  2. Le Sage derived this formula (v + 1) × 1 / (m + 1) - (v - 1) × 1 / (m + 1) = 2 × 1 / (m + 1) but at the end he came to a similar model as Fatio, because to reduce condensation and drag he was forced to assume very high particle speeds and therefore space is also in his model mostly empty.
  3. According to Poincare drag is proportional to Sρv, where S is earth's molecular surface area and v is the velocity of the corpuscules.

Any suggestions? --D.H 13:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the current "Drag" section of the article is inaccurate and should be improved.SJC1 18:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


Recent Activity

I suggest adding some actual rational references to the "recent activity" section of the article, to complement the current list of crackpot citations. For example, the mechanism of Lesage gravity has actually found application in the field of dusty plasmas. See "Frontiers in Dusty Plasmas" by Y. Nakamura, T. Yokota, and P.K. Shukla (2000). Of course, this isn't an attempt to explain gravitation by this mechanism, but I think it is still relevant and worth mentioning.SJC1 18:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Coupling to Energy

There seems to be some confusion in the latest edits to the "Coupling to Energy" section. The latest revision talks about heating a gas, leading to expansion, resulting in less saturation (shielding), and therefore increasing the gravitational mass. This line of "reasoning" is obviously mistaken. A gas contained with a constant volume can be heated, so it does not expand, and therefore no change in the shielding effect is to be expected according to Le Sage theory, and yet we know that the increased kinetic energy of the particles increases their gravitational mass. So, talking about the expansion of a mass is different than talking about increasing its energy. In fact, if you begin with a volume of gas at a certain pressure and temperature, and then allow the gas to expand (doing work on the boundary), its energy content is REDUCED, and yet according to the latest edit to this article we would expect the gravitational mass to INCREASE due to less shielding of the expanded gas particles. Basically, the latest edit is self-evidently erroneous, and had nothing to do with coupling with energy. Even if those comments were placed in the shielding section, as a prediction of increasing gravity with decreasing density, it would be necessary to point out that this is directly contradicted by experiment, not only due to the absence of any appreciable shielding in enormous and dense material objects, but also it is exactly opposite of the fact that pressure contributes to gravity as well (as does gravity itself, but needn't argue this at the moment). Thus, the latest edits are (1) in the wrong section, and (2) constitute another falsified prediction of Le Sage theory.SJC1 16:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... You are right, I now see that the Isenkrahe passage is at the wrong place, so I moved it into the shielding section. As you suggested I've included a comment, that this phenomenon (like all other supposed shielding phenomeoncons) is not verified by any experiment. --D.H 18:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The passage is non-sensical. It says "Any increase of the temperature would decrease the density" but that is not true. Ordinarily, the temperature of a given quantity of gas increases as the density increases. In other words, when you compress a volume of gas adiabatically, the temperature goes up along with the density and pressure. Either you are garbling what Isenkrahe said, or else Isenkrahe was an imbecile (or perhaps both). If you insist on including this reference, I suggest you say something like this:
"Isenkrahe pointed out that, according to Le Sage theory, the gravitation of a substance would increase slightly as its density decreased, because the amount of internal shielding would be reduced. All experimental evidence to date contradicts this hypothesis."
Just to elaborate on why Isenkrahe's statement (as reported here) makes no sense, notice that even for a solid object, if the object is compressed, its temperature increases as does its density. So according to Le Sage shielding, the gravitation is decreased as the temperature increases, just the opposite of what Isenkrahe says. The point is, it has nothing to do with temperature (or energy). It is simply density. So talking about "increases in temperature causing increase in gravity" is a complete red herring. The only validity in Isenkrahe's statement is the totally trivial fact that, if we assume matter is close to saturation, a given amount of matter will have less total gravity when compressed in a small volume than when spread out over a large volume. Nothing whatsoever to do with temperature or energy. That's why I think my re-worded version above is best.SJC1 22:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, but for every reasonable (and not "imbecile" as you say) person it should be clear that we (and Isenkrahe) are talking about effects like Thermal_expansion, where we can read: "In physics, thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in volume or pressure when heated.". It's clear that any increase in pressure wold lead to expansion (accept the case, we prevent it by compressing the object). That's all. And in this connection Isenkrahe's statement was absolutely correct. But Isenkrahe's generalisation was incorrect, because this connection to temperature is not valid for compressed and therefore heated objects or gases. But as you say: It is a "totally trivial fact", because Isenkrahe only suggested, that we use the same bodies, one heated and expanded, one is colder and therefore denser. And he asked for results. Now, in our time the results are clear, but in Isenkrahe's time they were not. So at least from a historical viewpoint it's interesting, which effects were considered at that time. --D.H 09:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I think we both agree that Isenkrahe's proposal has nothing to do with Energy coupling. But you wrote that Le Sage gravity is incompatible with coupling to energy. This is unknown (because no one ever tried to create a Le Sage type theory regarding that issue), therefore I changed the text a little bit and made it more neutral. --D.H 09:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
This article is not about some unknown future theory, it is about Le Sage gravity as it has been described and elaborated by its proponents up to the present time. Le Sage gravity is by definition the class of theories that attempt to provide a realistic mechanism for the effects of gravitation in terms of geometrical shadowing of impulses of particles or waves impinging on ordinary material bodies from all directions. Common to all of these theories is the requirement for the corpuscles (or waves) to be moving so fast that the ordinary motions of material bodies are negligible (otherwise unacceptable drag results). This basic premise is incompatible with the requirement for the gravity of a moving particle to be greater than the gravity of the same particle at rest. As far as the ultramundane flux is concerned, ALL ordinary bodies are essentially standing still. Therefore, Le Sage gravity cannot couple to kinetic energy, simply by the definition of Le Sage gravity. If someone wants to propose a theory that does couple to kinetic energy (and all other forms of energy), they will discover that this requires a tensor field (i.e., a force mediated by a spin-2 particle), and they will arrive at general relativity. It doesn't make sense to avoid stating facts about Le Sage theory in this article simply because someone thinks that some future unknown theory might be different. Write a separate article on "Future Unknown Theories".SJC1 16:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent Activity - Eclipsed by General Relativity?

The current article says there was a gradual loss of interest in Le Sage's theory, and ultimately it was eclipsed by general relativity. That is misleading, because it suggests that Le Sage theory was at one time highly regarded, but then lost ground, and finally was replaced by general relativity. The historical fact is that Le Sage's theory was never well-regarded within the scientific community. The mainstream theory of gravity that was superceeded by general relativity was the Newton/Cotes/Laplace action-at-a-distance theory. Le Sage's theory was always regarded by most scientists (those who heard of it at all) as an amusing (or appalling) contrivance, serving mainly as an example of how NOT to do physics.

There is, however, one sense in which general relativity did "eclipse" Le Sage's theory, and that is in the sense of actually accomplishing in a theoretically satisfactory way the objectives that Le Sage theory tried but failed to accomplish. In this way, general relativity removed the motivation for anyone to be interested in a theory like Le Sage's, because all the problematic aspects of the Newton/Cotes theory (such as instantaneous action at a distance) were resolved. If this is the sense the article is trying to convey, I think it should be re-worded for clarity.SJC1 21:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As I understood the passage, it says exactly that what you are talking about. The passage says, which problems lead to a progressive loss of interest in mechanicle models like Le Sage’s theory. And than it was (like all other theories) eclipsed by GR. But if you can describe it better, I have no problem with that. --D.H 09:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Further Developments - The Extra Sentence

The sentence moved by D.H doesn't really fit where it is now placed. It says "Another similarity...", but the preceding similarities are missing, because they are enunciated later, in the section on Preston. That's why I moved the sentence there, where it connects to the "other" similarities with kinetic theory. Also, this particular reference, to x-rays, etc., shouldn't be in the header/introductory text of this section, because this makes it seem like it is more important or foundational to the following information. I don't think that is the intent. So, I think it fits better where I placed it, not where it currently resides.SJC1 22:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Another comment: The sentence claims that another similarity [to kinetic theory?] arises in the electron theory and the theory of x-rays, but it doesn't say what this claimed similarity is. It should state the similarity. On the face of it, one would think the electron theory disproves Le Sage's idea of a net structure with bars and cages. Also, the discovery of x-rays and the atomic structure of matter serves to contradict many aspects of Le Sage theory.

Another comment: The references to Drude etc are not explained. Are they being referenced for the electron theory and x-rays, or for the claim that those things resemble Le Sage theory, or are they just general review articles for all the "further developments" discussed in this section? (The latter possiblility is the only one that would support leaving the sentence in its present location.)SJC1 06:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the x-rays sentence: At the beginning of the section I only wanted to state the reasons, why Le Sage type models were reconsidered between 1870 and 1911. The first reason were the kinetic theory of gases (as anyone can see in the theories of Kelvin and Tolver Preston). And the second were the conneciton to the electron theory, which was clearly outlined in the encyclopedian article by J.J. Thomson. Also Poincare said at the end of his Lesage critique in Science and Method that Lorentz' em-theory was nearly identical to Lesage's theory. Now, Thomson had his reasons why he stated: It is a very interesting result of recent discoveries that the machinery which Le Sage introduced for the purpose of his theory has a very close analogy with things for which we have now direct experimental evidence. And this statement was in connection with x-rays. We can hardly find a more reputably source for that time than the Encyclopedia Britannica. The passage only should show, in which context the Le Sage theory was discussed - and that was the kinetic theory and the electron theory. But I made some changes, to make the connection clearer.
You say the electron theory would disprove Fatio's and Le Sage's idea of a net structure with bars and cages. But this specific model was already rejected by Tolver Preston, Isenkrahe, Darwin etc. who replaced them with equidense spheres etc.. But everyone knew that the basic thought behind the theories (the great permeability of matter) was the same. And the same similarity was pointed out by JJ Thomson.
Regarding the references: The papers of Drude and Zenneck were general review articles on the entire issue of gravitation, action at a distance etc.. In those articles also some mechanical and electromagnetic explanations were discussed (It's notable that Le Sage type models was given the most space). --D.H 09:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the current version is an improvement, although it would be better to replace the reference to "electron theory" with a reference to "atomic theory". When people talk about electron theory, per se, they generally have in mind the theory of electrodynamics. Notice that Lorentz's magnum opus on "The Electron Theory" makes no mention whatsoever of any gravitational effects. That is not part of his electron theory. It just so happens that Lorentz also wrote one paper considering the possibility of explaining gravity with this model, and his conclusion was that this model does NOT provide a reasonable explanation of gravity. Hence the electron theory actually provides reasons to discard Le Sage theory, not to adopt it, as the current article suggests. Likewise, the phenomena of x-rays (even as summarized by JJ Thomson) lead AWAY from Le Sage notions, because it illustrates the fact that the effective interaction cross-section of matter with respect to electromagnetic coupling cannot be less than the electromagnetic cross-section of matter itself (i.e., electrons and protons). As a result, no electromagnetic radiation can be more penetrating than x-rays, which of course are not nearly penetrating enough. Neutrinos are so penetrating precisely because they do NOT couple to the electromagnetic force, nor even to the strong nuclear force; they couple only to the weak nuclear force and the gravitational force, and hence the governing parameter is the gravitational cross-section of matter, which is many many orders of magnitude smaller than the electromagnetic cross-section. But the fact that elementary particles have different effective cross-sections for different force-interactions is contrary to the simplistic Le Sage notion of contact interactions based on collision with objects of some definite spatial extent. The actual interactions are not via "direct contact"... in fact, that is now understood to be a meaningless concept. The interactions are via force fields, which of course is anathema to Le Sage. This brings us to the subject of the net-cage structure of matter. You say Le Sage's cages had already been abandoned, which is true, but you neglect to add that Le Sage's theory loses whatever conceptual coherence it might have possessed as soon as his cages are abandoned, because then we are committed to force fields to hold the elementary particles of matter together in the form of macroscopic bodies. Again, these forces acting at a distance are anathema to Le Sage, and yet he must embrace them when he gives up his cages (which maintain shape by direct contact). Of course, the cages were problematic as well, but at least they provided some conceptual distraction enabling Le Sage to ignore the unavoidability (even within his own theory) of forces of attraction that are not produced by his mechanism.
The bottom line is: neither the electron theory nor x-rays are helpful to Le Sage. The only things that can be said to be favorable to Le Sage (to very limited extent) are the related kinetic and atomic theories, but these are really both implicit in kinetic theory, i.e., kinetic theory pre-supposes an atomic theory of matter. So there really is no justification for saying anything beyone "kinetic theory and the related atomic theory of matter".SJC1 16:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
One further point: I'm even more convinced now that the term "electron theory" must be removed, because it has been highlighted with a link to the Wikipedia article on "Electron Theory", which of course refers to modern electron theory, NOT to what Lorentz called electron theory. Those are two completely different theories, so it's false advertising to refer to electron theory. I repeat that the article should just refer to kinetic theory. There is no harmony between Le Sage's model and either electron theory or x-rays (nor in any of the rest of modern science).SJC1 05:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
We are talking about the historical context of the theory. And in that context, there was a connection of the electron theory outlined by Lorentz. We cannot ignore the very clear statements of JJ Thomson. Now, modern knowledge maybe show that this connection is wrong - but it is not our task to point this out in this section. Maybe there should be made a statement in "predictions and critisism" section, namely in the "kinetic theory" passage. And, of course, it should not be forgetten, that another waveforms like gamma-ray bursts or radio and microwaves have some penetrating power etc. and were also considered. Maybe the internal link to "electron theory" is not too good so I tried to give an explanation. BTW: Zenneck also gave a description of Lorentz considerations on gravitation, so I will try to improve the Lorentz section. And if someone is interested in Lorentz' book, see the online version: The theory of electrons and its applications to the phenomena of light and radiant heat.
Regarding net structure: It would be interesting to talk about the relation to binding forces in a mechanical context and wether there maybe is a need for "attracting forces" - but I think it's not necessary to point this out in an article only related to gravitation. Of course, there were some suggestions to combine the molecular binding forces with the ultramundane flux as a result of a total absorbtion of the flux between the fundamental particles in very close distances, leading ot extreme strong forces (requiring an extreme intensity of the flux, so that this force is strong enough). This possibility was mentioned by some Lesagian authors in the 19th century. --D.H 18:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Aberration

There is another problem in the Lorentz/Poincare/Thomson context: The article says in the Aberration section "This has been suggested by many, including Poincaré, as a conclusive disproof of any Le Sage type of theory". But Poincare didn't wrote a single word on Laplace-Aberration in the Lesage section in Science and Method, he was talking about drag and was mentioning Laplace only in the connection with gravitational shielding. On the contrary: Lorentz himself proposed also a second theory, which also was described in Science and Method and was also mentioned by JJ Thomson in his article. Here, Lorentz combined the Franklin/Zöllner theory for gravitation with the Maxwell-equations. In this theory the repulsive component of the electric charge is a little bit weaker than the attractive one so at the end some sort of universal gravitation arises. Now, Poincare defended Lorentz' second theory against Laplace's aberration critique by calling it (Laplace's argument) not well-founded. And that was the only statement of Poincare regarding Laplace-Aberration. (Before that in 1905 he also critized Laplace in the context of the same theory of Lorentz in his Palermo paper). --D.H 18:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Poincare didn't discuss aberration for Lesage in Science and Method. However, it certainly has been discussed historically, such as in Aargo's biography of Laplace, where he explicitly talks about how Laplace's analysis of the lunar orbit taking account of possible time delay in the transference of gravity placed a lower limit on the speed of Lesage's ultra-mundane corpuscles. Also, keep in mind that Poincare's (and Whittaker's) dismissal of Laplace's reasoning applies only to a field theory. Everyone agrees that Laplace's reasoning is perfectly valid for a corpuscular theory with rectilinear motion. It doesn't apply to a field theory because a field can support non-central forces, as indeed it must if it is to be relativistic. In this sense Poincare did implicitly criticize all such theories, on the grounds that they are manifestly non-relativistic, and hence would exhibit aberration (which is not observed).SJC1 02:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

JJ Thomson, electrical constitution

Wikipedia has to present correct historical information. Now, Thomson saw a connecton with the "electrical constitution of matter" (electron theory), and it's irrelevant, if someone thinks he was right or wrong, we have to insert the information in the historical context. BTW: The analogy to x-rays and secondary re-radiation was ovious, so Thomson could find this argument by himself, so it's unknown, that he only repeated Poincares argument (he never cited him). It's even unclear, that it was Poincare's own argument, maybe he had taken this from Thomasina etc.... So please stop to try rewrite history. --D.H 09:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've inserted a discussion of the electron theory in the predictions/criticism section. So please insert any criticism (based on modern knowledge) on Thomson's x-rays/Lesage-connection in the criticism section, not in the historical section. --D.H 17:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't a question of re-writing history, it's a question of tedious repetition in the article. The idea of x-rays (or super x-rays) and secondary radiation has already been described in detail in the Poincare section, so the description of the same thing in the JJ Thomson section is just redundant. It would be better to simply refer to it, rather than describing it all over again. Just say something like "Like Poincare, Thomson discussed the possibility of secondary radiation of something like x-rays to avoid the heating problem. However, he observed that no known radiation has the required properties". No need to describe the whole idea over again.
By the way, I believe the word is spelled "corpuscle", not "corpuscule". The article should adopt a single consistent spelling.SJC1 01:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction. I automatically corrected the words with an editor but I haven't noticed, that the plural is faulty now.... --D.H 12:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the "Analogies" section under "Predictions and Criticisms" should be removed, because it contains neither predictions nor criticisms. As it stands, the section simply repeats some of the historical statements that are already presented in the historical section. I know this section was placed here to allow for criticism of these statements, but the problem is that this does not constitute criticism of the theory itself (which is the subject of this overall section), but of the historical statements. So it really belongs in the historical section (where it was in the first place). For example, Preston says Lesage's corpuscles behave like a gas. Well, it's true that Preston said this, but he was obviously wrong. It isn't difficult to explain exactly why he wrong, but this isn't a criticism of the theory, per se, it is a criticism of Preston's historical comment about the theory. Hence it really belongs in the historical section. Likewise JJ Thomson's comments need to be clarified, not to clarify the theory, but to clarify the meaning of his comments in their historical context. Maybe the best approach would be to be sure all the historical statements are prefaced with "Mr X claimed...", and then add a footnote to comment on claims that are now known to be false. Making these clarifications as footnotes would avoid disrupting the flow of the historical narrative, while at the same time preventing any confusion.SJC1 20:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I only wanted to create a section for criticism to maintain the narrative flow in the historical section. But it's true that the analogies section unfortunately is only a repetition of the historical section and therefore I replaced it with a background radiation section (placed under the Porosity section), which contains an actual prediction of the theory, which is like most of the other predictions, only partially verified.
You say, that that the JJ Thomson comments must be clarified. This was actually done by Aronson in his statement placed in the Lorentz section. But I moved Aronson's comment into the Poincare/Thomson section. Also I've found an online version of Lorentz Considerations on gravitation, so I will expand the Lorentz-Section. Most of the wave related arguments of both Poincare and Thomson are only summaries of the theories of Tommasina and Lorentz. I'm trying to find information on Tommasina's theory, so we can actually provide a historical correct version based on primary sources, because the Tommasina/Lorentz/Poincare/Thomson passages are one connected complex. --D.H 12:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)