Tags: aether, gravitation
Categories: Alternative conceptions
An example of an historical scientific notion which would now be considered an alternative conception
"[Newton] denied that he had committed himself to any explanation of gravity, or to anything more than a mathematical description of the relations which had been found to exist between bodies of matter. At one moment, however, he seemed privately to favour the view that the cause of gravity was in the ether (which became less dense at or near the earth, and least dense of all at or near the sun), gravity representing the tendency of all bodies to move to the place where the ether was rarer."
Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.
p.17
