"All physical experiments we do, at the surface of the earth, are done within the earth's electric field that has a quiet background value of about 100 Volts per vertical meter. Also these experiments are done in the earth's geomagnetic field, so this makes 2 EM fields we need to be aware of. If either of the two fields are constant during an experiment, then the experimental data have one sense of utility. If either of the fields change during the experiment, then the experiment might produce, what we call erroneous, data. If you are not aware of these EM fields, then your, to you, scientific explanations, are incomplete." -- Louis Hissink, geologist, February 2009
"Leibniz also disagreed with other aspects of Newtonianism, such as the use of gravity, which he held to be a revival of occultism, and Newton's use of space as an absolute. Leibnizian physics defined motion and therefore space as relational." -- William E. Burns, historian, 2001
"Leibniz held that the Newtonian universe was imperfect because it occasionally requires God to intervene to prevent it from running down." -- William E. Burns, historian, 2001
"Leibniz also attacked Newtonian physical ideas, including absolute space and time, [and] the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which he charged introduced an occult force...." -- William E. Burns, historian, 2001
"When first observed by Voyager, the spoke movements [of Saturn's Rings] seemed to defy gravity and had the scientists very perplexed. Since the spokes rotate at the same rate as Saturn's magnetic field, it is apparent that the electromagnetic forces are also at work." -- Ron Baalke, astrophysicist, 1998
"Like Huygens, Leibniz never accepted Newtonian gravitation." -- Ezio Vailati, philosopher, 1997
"By applying an electric field across a spherical capacitor filled with a dielectric liquid, a body force analogous to gravity is generated around the fluid." -- James E. Arnold, geoscientist, March 1995
"The advantage of using this [Geophysical Fluid Flow Cell] apparatus is that it simulates atmospheric flows around stars and planets, i.e. the "artificial gravity" is directed toward the center of the sphere much like a self-gravitating body." -- James E. Arnold, geoscientist, March 1995
"The experiment verified that dielectric forces can be used to properly simulate a spherical gravitational field to drive thermal convection." -- James E. Arnold, geoscientist, March 1995
"Gravitational systems are the ashes of prior electrical systems." -- Hannes O.G. Alfven, physicist, 1976
"Newton himself thought that he proved his laws from facts. He claimed that he deduced his laws from the 'phenomena' provided by Kepler. But his boast was nonsense, since according to Kepler, planets move in ellipses, but according to Newton's theory, planets would move in ellipses only if the planets did not disturb each other in their motion. But they do. This is why Newton had to devise a perturbation theory from which it follows that no planet moves in an ellipse." -- Imre Lakatos, philosopher, 1973
"It was only the downfall of Newtonian theory in this century which made scientists realize that their standards of honesty had been utopian." -- Imre Lakatos, philosopher, 1973
"Physical scientists were outraged in 1950 when Immanuel Velikovsky published historical evidence from around the world suggesting that the order and even the number of planets in the solar system had changed within the memory of man. Ideas in nearly every field of scholarship were challenged, but most seriously challenged of all were certain dogmas in the field of astronomy which had only in recent centuries succeeded in convincing mankind that Spaceship Earth was a haven of safety. The emotional outburst from the community of astronomers that so blackened the name Velikovsky and so successfully- if only temporarily- discredited Worlds in Collision has been laid to many causes, from the psychological and the political to simple resentment against invasion of the field by an outsider. Whatever the nature of such intensifying factors, however, I believe it is only fair to acknowledge an underlying and totally sincere scientific disbelief in the historical record." -- Ralph E. Juergens, engineer, 1972
"But then if there were events of this character, discharges between planets and so on, I put one of the most outrageous claims before the scientific readers, that in the solar system and in the universe generally, not just gravitation and inertia are the two forces of action but that also electricity and magnetism are participating in the mechanism. So the Lord was not just a watchmaker. The universe is not free of those forces with which the man makes his life easy already more than 100 years. They were unknown practically or little known in the time of Newton in the second half of the 17th century. But today we know that electricity and magnetism, these are not just small phenomena that we can repeat as a kind of a little trick in the lab, that they permeate every field from neurology into botony and chemistry and astronomy should not be free...and it was admitted by authorities that this was the most outrageous point in my claims. But the vengeance came early and swiftly. In 1960, already in 1955, radio noises from Jupiter were detected and this was one of the crucial tests that I offered for the truth of my theory. In 1958, the magnetosphere was discovered around the Earth, another claim. In 1960, the interplanetary magnetic field was discovered and solar plasma, so-called solar wind, moving rapidly along the magnetic lines and then it was discovered that the electromagnetic field of the Earth reaches the moon ." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966
"Jonathan Swift, in his Gulliver’s Travels (1726) tells of the astronomers of the imaginary land of the Laputans who asserted they had discovered that the planet Mars has 'two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary planet exactly three of [its] diameters, and the outermost Five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one-and-a-half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the center of Mars, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.'" -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, ~1960-1970
"The picture of an atom began to look more like a miniature solar system with an atomic nucleus for the sun, and electrons for planets. The analogy with the planetary system can be further strengthened by these facts: the atomic nucleus contains 99.97 per cent of the total atomic mass as compared with 99.87 per cent of the solar system concentrated in the sun, and the distances between the planetary electrons exceed their diameters by about the same factor (several thousand times) which we find when comparing interplanetary distances with the diameters of the planets. The more important analogy lies, however, in the fact that the electric attraction-forces between the atomic nucleus and the electrons obey the same mathematical law of inverse square (that is, the forces are inversely proportionate to the square of the distance between two bodies) as the gravity forces acting between the sun and the planets. This makes the electrons describe the circular and elliptic trajectories around the nucleus, similar to those along which the planets and comets move in the solar system." -- George Gamow, physicist, 1961
"Which experiment would you [Velikovsky] like to have performed now? I know which experiment you would like now—the Cavendish experiment in a Faraday Cage." -- Albert Einstein, mathematician, 1955
"Now in the same 1845, the year of this triumph, Leverrier calculated also the anomaly of Mercury, and by this caused to think that the Newtonian law of gravitation may be not precisely true. Leverrier first thought of some planet moving inside the Mercurial orbit or of a possible unequal distribution of the mass in the sun. You [Einstein] have used the fact of the anomaly to prove that the space is curving in the presence of a mass. About the same time—in 1913—G. E. Hale published his paper on “The general magnetic field of the sun” (Contr. M. Wilson Obs., #71), in which he estimated the general magnetic field of the sun as of 50 Gauss intensity. At this intensity “under certain conditions electromagnetic forces are much stronger than gravitation.” (Alfven) The last named author in his “cosmical Electro-dynamics” (Oxford, 1950, p. 2) shows that a hydrogen atom at the distance of the earth from the sun and moving with the earth’s orbital velocity, if ionized, is acted upon by the solar magnetic field ten thousand times stronger than by the solar gravitational field." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1952
"My book is as strange as the fact that the Earth is a magnet, the cause of which is indeterminate and the consequences of which are not estimated in the Earth-Moon relations." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1952
"Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"The moon does not 'fall,' attracted to the earth from an assumed inertial motion along a straight line, nor is the phenomenon of objects falling in the terrestrial atmosphere comparable with the 'falling effect' in the movement of the moon, a conjecture which is the basic element of the Newtonian theory of gravitation." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"The ingredients of the air—oxygen, nitrogen, argon and other gases—though not in a compound but in a mixture, are found in equal proportions at various levels of the atmosphere despite great differences in specific weights...Why, then, do not the atmospheric gases separate and stay apart in accordance with the specific gravities?" -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"Ozone, though heavier than oxygen, is absent in the lower layers of the atmosphere, is present in the upper layers...Nowhere is it asked why ozone does not descend of its own weight or at least why it is not mixed by the wind with other gases." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"Water, though eight hundred times heavier than air, is held in droplets, by the millions of tons, miles above the ground. Clouds and mist are composed of droplets which defy gravitation." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"All planets revolve in approximately one plane. They revolve in a plane perpendicular to the lines of force of the sun’s magnetic field." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1946
"According to our present view every atom consists of a small heavy nucleus approximately 1O^-12 cm in diameter sur-rounded by a largely empty region 1O^-8 cm in diameter in which electrons move somewhat like planets about the sun." -- Hendy D. Smyth, physicist, 1945
"The mathematical proofs of Newton are completely erroneous." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1942
"The phenomenon (why not questioned at all?) that Nitrogen lighter than Oxygen does not move to the higher level in the atmosphere, though the air is a mixture and not a compound, is another fact of disobedience to the ‘law’ of gravitation. Also water, in small drops, is lifted then dropped by electrical charges and discharges." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, November 1942
"If an atom is built as a microcosmical model of a solar system, elements arriving from interatomic space, also travelling from one atom to another must be in existence. Contacts between elements, increase in numbers of electrons, polarities, change of orbits, all must take place. Change of orbits and emitting of energy at these moments were supposed by Bohr." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, November 1942
"But what do you know about gravitation? Nothing, except that it is a very recent development, not too well established, and that the math is so hard that only twelve men in Lagash are supposed to understand it." -- Isaac Asimov, writer, 1941
"Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians." -- John M. Keynes, economist, 1936
"An atom differs from the solar system by the fact that it is not gravitation that makes the electrons go round the nucleus, but electricity." -- Bertrand Russell, physicist/philosopher, 1924
"...what is really wanted for a truly Natural Philosophy is a supplement to Newtonian mechanics, expressed in terms of the medium which he suspected and sought after but could not attain, and introducing the additional facts, chiefly electrical—especially the fact of variable inertia—discovered since his time…" -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicst, February 1921
"Magnetism is possessed by the whole mass of the earth and universe of heavenly bodies, and is an essence of known demonstration and laws. By adopting it we have the advantage over the gravity theory by the use of the polar relation to magnetism. A magnetic north pole presented to a magnetic south pole, or a south pole to a north pole, attracts, while a north pole to another north pole or a south pole to another repels. This gives to us a better reason than gravitation can for the elliptical orbit of the planets instead of the circular. It also gives us some light on the mystery of the tides, the philosophy of which the profoundest study has not solved. Certain facts are apparent; but for the explanation of the true theory such men as Laplace and Newton, and others more recent, have labored in vain." -- C.H. Kilmer, historian, October 1915
"Since Newton announced his universal law of gravitation, scientists have accepted and educators taught it, and rarely has it been questioned. Occasionally one has the temerity to say that gravitation is a myth, an invented word to cover scientific ignorance." -- C.H. Kilmer, historian, October 1915
"The form of the corona and the motion of the prominences suggest that it [the sun] is a magnet." -- George E. Hale, astronomer, 1913
"What we call mass would seem to be nothing but an appearance, and all inertia to be of electromagnetic origin." -- Henri Poincaré, physicist, 1908
"...inertia is exclusively of electromagnetic origin...." -- Henri Poincaré, physicist, 1908
"...the great truth, accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed, is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball...." -- Nikola Tesla, physicist, 1904
"If it be true that every atom occupies the same volume of space, then gravitation might seem to be an effect depending on the crowdedness of electrons; but when an atom, breaks up into unequal parts, the smaller portion must in that case undergo considerable expansion, and that would be inconsistent with the constancy of gravitation, if it depended on crowdedness: hence I think it more probable that it depends on some interaction between positive and negative electricity, and that it is generated when these two come together, that is whenever an atom of matter is formed." -- Oliver J. Lodge, physicist, 1904
"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, gravitational physicist, 1895
"If we were to assert that we knew more of moving objects than this their last-mentioned, experimentally-given comportment with respect to the celestial bodies, we should render ourselves culpable of a falsity." -- Ernst Mach, physicist, 1893
"...it is not necessary to refer the law of inertia to a spacial absolute space. On the contrary, it is perceived that the masses that in the common phraseology exert forces on each other as well as those that exert none, stand with respect to acceleration in quite similar relations. We may, indeed, regard all masses as related to each other. That accelerations play a prominent part in the relations of the masses, must be accepted as a fact of experience; which does not, however, exclude attempts to elucidate this fact by a comparison of it with other facts, involving the discovery of new points of view." -- Ernst Mach, physicist, 1893
"...certain theoretical investigations ... appear to me to throw doubt on the utility of very minute gravitational observations." -- George H. Darwin, physicist, 1882
"The long and constant persuasion that all the forces of nature are mutually dependent, having one common origin, or rather being different manifestations of one fundamental power, has often made me think on the possibility of establishing, by experiment, a connection between gravity and electricity …no terms could exaggerate the value of the relation they would establish.'' -- Michael Faraday, physicist, 1865
"Thus, thinking as Newton did (i.e., that all celestial bodies are attracted to the sun and move through empty space), it is extremely improbable that the six planets would move as they do." -- Pierre L. Maupertuis, polymath, 1746
"...to establish it [gravitation] as original or primitive in certain parts of matter is to resort either to miracle or an imaginary occult quality." -- Gottfreid W. Leibniz, polymath, July 1710
"Meanwhile remote operation has just been revived in England by the admirable Mr. Newton, who maintains that it is the nature of bodies to be attracted and gravitate one towards another, in proportion to the mass of each one, and the rays of attraction it receives. Accordingly the famous Mr. Locke, in his answer to Bishop Stillingfleet, declares that having seen Mr. Newton's book he retracts what he himself said, following the opinion of the moderns, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, to wit, that a body cannot operate immediately upon another except by touching it upon its surface and driving it by its motion. He acknowledges that God can put properties into matter which cause it to operate from a distance. Thus the theologians of the Augsburg Confession claim that God may ordain not only that a body operate immediately on divers bodies remote from one another, but that it even exist in their neighbourhood and be received by them in a way with which distances of place and dimensions of space have nothing to do. Although this effect transcends the forces of Nature, they do not think it possible to show that it surpasses the power of the Author of Nature. For him it is easy to annul the laws that he has given or to dispense with them as seems good to him, in the same way as he was able to make iron float upon water and to stay the operation of fire upon the human body." -- Gottfriend W. Leibniz, polymath, 1695
"When formerly I regarded space as an immovable real place, possessing extension alone, I had been able to define absolute motion as change of this real space. But gradually I began to doubt whether there is in nature such an entity as is called space; whence it followed that a doubt might arise about absolute motion." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1695
"That gravity should be innate inherent and essential to matter so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of any thing else by and through which their action or force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial is a question I have left to the consideration of my readers." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, February 1693
"Since we have already proved through geometrical considerations the equivalence of all hypotheses with respect to the motions of any bodies whatsoever, however numerous, moved only by the collision with other bodies, it follows that not even an angel could determine with mathematical rigor which of the many bodies of that sort is at rest, and which is the center of motion for the others." -- Gottfried W. Leibniz, polymath, 1689
"...lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other, he [God] hath placed those systems at immense distances from one another." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1687
"And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit the particles of bodies attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the neighboring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explained in few words, nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic spirit operates." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1686
"I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses..." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1676
"The present does not seem to be the proper time to investigate the cause of the acceleration of natural motion [i.e., gravity], concering which various opinions have been expressed by various philosophers, some explaining it by attraction to the center, others to repulsion between the very small parts of the body, while still others attribute it to a certain stress in the surrounding medium which closes in behind the falling body and drives it from one of its positions to another." -- Galileo Galilei, physicist, 1638
"The example of the magnet I have hit upon is a very pretty one, and entirely suited to the subject; indeed, it is little short of being the very truth." -- Johannes Kepler, astronomer/mathematician, 1609
"It is therefore plausible, since the Earth moves the moon through its species and magnetic body, while the sun moves the planets similarly through an emitted species, that the sun is likewise a magnetic body." -- Johannes Kepler, astronomer/mathematician, 1609
"But come: let us follow more closely the tracks of this similarity of the planetary reciprocation [libration] to the motion of a magnet, and that by a most beautiful geometric demonstration, so that it might appear that a magnet has such a motion as that which we perceive in the planet." -- Johannes Kepler, astronomer/mathematician, 1609