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Epilogue: Hooke’s Explanation of Gravity

We close here by recalling an interesting historical fact that remained unexploited properly because one couldn’t see the true mathematical connection with the Third Principle of Dynamics. It is not quite so much publicized the fact that, just about the same period with Newton, Robert Hooke had an explanation of the cause of gravitation (Hooke, 1705, pp. 183 - 184). He saw this cause in the presence of ether, as a consequence of the fact that the Earth for instance is deforming. This deformation is extended to ether and the ether “collides” all the bodies around. The appearance is then that the bodies are attracted towards Earth due to their inertia approximately in the manner people put the handle to an axe or a hoe: hitting the handle longitudinally with a hammer makes the metal part move along the handle toward the hammer. It is to be understood that this explanation of the gravity, the first and only in Newtonian manner, and actually the only explanation of the gravitation if we don’t consider General Relativity, is connected with the freedom of particles expressed by equation (3′) not by equation (3). It is said that Hooke would claim that he found an explanation of the force inverse with the square of the distance, but this is doubtful. Not because of the mathematical skills of Hooke, as one can hear sometimes, but because of fundamental issues. Even if Hooke would know the whole mathematics of the present century we still don’t agree: his explanation involves an entirely different kind of material particle than that involved in the Newtonian description of gravitation.

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