Superphysics Superphysics
Chapter 8b

The Birth of Electromagnetism from Spacetime

by Rene Descartes Icon
4 minutes  • 774 words
Table of contents
Cartesian Principles Assertions
Conversion from Aether to Matter Aether becomes Spacetime then becomes Electromagnetism
. The Sizes of Spacetime Particles Depend on their Location

Spacetime Becomes Electromagnetism

The aether particles that broke off from air-aether during collisions gained:

  • more speed than the air-aether because they had to travel farther at the same amount of time.
  • the ability to change shape so that it could fit anywhere

They became the fire-aether.

The excess fire-aether needed to fill the small gaps in the round air-aether necessarily go around them and must draw back toward the centers around the air-aether.

This is because the air-aether occupies all the other, more distant places.

At those centers, the remaining fire-aether must compose perfectly liquid and subtle round bodies.

The Inverse Square Law Comes From Circular Motion

These incessantly turn much faster than, and in the same direction as, the parts of air-aether surrounding them.

The parts of the fire-aether have the force:

  • to increase the agitation of those parts to which they are closest and
  • in moving from the center toward the circumference, to push the parts of fire-aether in all directions, just as they push one another.

This action we perceive as light.

Let us assume that round bodies of pure fire-aether are the stars.

The air-aether turns around those stars as stellar gravitational territories [’the heavens’].

Imagine, that:

  • the points S, E, e, A, and Z are the centers
  • all the air-aether of the gravitational territory FFFFGG turns around S
  • all the air-aether of the gravitational territory HGGH turns around the star e, and so on for the others.
Gravitational Territories

Thus, each star has a stellar gravitational territory.

  • Since the number of stars is indefinite, so too is the number of stellar gravitational territories.

The firmament is the flat surface separating all the gravitational territories from one another.

Orbital Speeds

The particles of the air-aether towards F or G are more agitated than those toward K or L.

  • This makes their speed gradually decrease from the edge of each territory to the middle place such as:
    • the orbit KK around the S
    • the orbit LL around e.

From there, the middle part, it then increases little by little up to the centers of the gravitational territory because of the agitation of the stars at the center.

Thus, the comparative speeds of the air-aether around the different orbits are:

Orbit Cartesian Speed Actual Verdict
Earht orbit 10-30 units of speed 30 km/s (Earth) Plausible (Forgivable)
Orbit K 1 unit of speed 13 km/s (Jupiter) Plausible (Forgivable)
Edge of the solar system 60 Units of speed 0.91 km/s near Pluto (Halley’s Comet) Wrong

This is why:

  • the farthest planets move more slowly than those nearest to the sun
  • all the planets together move more slowly than the comets, which are more distant.*
Superphysics Note
Here, Descartes is factually wrong about orbital speeds beyond Pluto as he says it should be faster than Earth. In fact, it is even much slower than Saturn or Jupiter. Newton actually saw this error and is why he saw Descartes’ vortices theory as problematic. After comparing The World with Principia Philosophia, we see no reason why Descartes would assign a faster speed to the outer region of a solar system especially since there is likely more friction from the spacetime of contiguous star systems. It is possible he made this wrong conclusion by misjudging the speed of comets which he did not have data on

The Sizes of the Air-Aether Particles Depend on their Location

The comparative sizes of the air-aether around the different orbits are:

Orbit Cartesian Size Power Actual Verdict
Near the sun small strongest (most agitated) small Correct but obvious anyway
Orbit K large ? large Correct but obvious anyway
Edge of the solar system medium ? Oort cloud is smallest Possibly Wrong
  • Between the edges of FFFFGG and edges of the orbit KK, the air-aether has similar sizes, with those at the edges of FFFFGG being slightly smaller than those at the edges of orbit KK .
  • By contrast, from orbit K to the sun, the air-aether nearest to the sun are the smallest and strongest due to their agitation.

The smaller their size, the faster their speed.

  • Otherwise, if were large and fast, then they would be flung out to the edges of orbit KK
Orbital Speeds

The sizes of the stars can be so small compared to their own territories or solar systems.

This makes the orbits KK, LL, etc mark the edges of the agitated area of these stars which facilitates the smaller particles of the air-aether.

  • These orbits can be considered as the center of those stellar gravitational territories.

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