Concept

Mechanical explanations of gravitation

Overview

Mechanical explanations of gravitation (or kinetic theories of gravitation) are attempts to explain the action of gravity by aid of basic mechanical processes, such as pressure forces caused by pushes, without the use of any action at a distance. These theories were developed from the 16th until the 19th century in connection with the aether. However, such models are no longer regarded as viable theories within the mainstream scientific community because general relativity is now the standard model to describe gravitation without the use of actions at a distance. Modern "quantum gravity" hypotheses also attempt to describe gravity by more fundamental processes such as particle fields, but they are not based on classical mechanics.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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From this it follows, that every motion in our microcosm is the effect of gravitation; seeing that there is not in the universe either top or bottom, nor any absolute centre. It should appear, that the weight of bodies depends on their configuration, as well external as internal, which gives them that form of action which is called gravitation. Thus, for instance, a piece of lead, spherically formed, falls quickly…
Paul Henri Thiry Holbach, The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1
States what Mechanical explanations of gravitation is.
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In the Newtonian system, bodies under the action of no forces move in straight lines with uniform velocity; when bodies do not move in this way, their change of motion is ascribed to a “force.” Some forces seem intelligible to our imagination: those exerted by a rope or string, by bodies colliding, or by any kind of obvious pushing or pulling. As explained in an earlier chapter, our apparent imaginative…
Bertrand Russell, The A B C of Relativity
States what Mechanical explanations of gravitation is.
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But with the dimensions of matter it is not thus: the ternary number is determined for it not by the reason of the best, but by a geometrical necessity, because the geometricians have been able to prove that there are only three straight lines perpendicular to one another which can intersect at one and the same point. Nothing more appropriate could have been [336] chosen to show the difference there is between the…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
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Philosophers who discussed Mechanical explanations of gravitation

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Atomism.

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