RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

2026-10-04 archive.org (Internet Archive, incl. JSTOR Early Journal Content)

Investigator, Step I, run 1. Browsed in Chrome. No files downloaded (see sites.md note on downloads); URLs given so the owner can fetch them.

Queries

  1. advancedsearch title:(new-church review) -> 319 items; The New-Church Review 1894-1933 is on IA as single issues, not access-restricted.
  2. advancedsearch identifier:new-church-review-1894_1913* OR ..._1918* OR ..._1912* -> 15 items including 1913-04 (Vol 20 Iss 2), 1913-07 (Vol 20 Iss 3), 1913 contents, 1918-10 (Vol 25 Iss 4).
  3. advancedsearch title:"gyroscopic quanta" OR title:"ether vortices" OR (creator:fessenden AND year:[1899 TO 1915]) OR creator:"very, frank" -> 71 items (list below).
  4. advancedsearch creator:(very) AND (title:nipher OR "cosmic cycle" OR "light of the stars" OR ether OR aether OR electron) -> 1 item (a second scan of the 1919 book).
  5. advancedsearch title:nipher AND year:[1918 TO 1921] -> 0.

Findings

A. Very's earlier Swedenborg-physics papers in the New-Church Review (priority 1)

B. A second scan of the 1919 book (priority 1)

  • https://archive.org/details/luminiferousethe00veryrich ("The luminiferous ether : (I) ... (II) ...", 1919, Very). This is a different physical copy from the project's Google Books scan. It may have a cleaner text layer for the exponents on printed pp. 33-34 (PDF pp. 37-38). It could serve as a check on the printed "1.660 x 10^22" figure that the deep read found inconsistent.

C. Fessenden, "A Determination of the Nature and Velocity of Gravitation", Science N.S. XII, No. 307, pp. 740-745, 16 Nov 1900 (priority 2: the source Very quotes)

URL [web]: https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1628439/1628439_djvu.txt (PDF: https://archive.org/download/jstor-1628439/1628439.pdf) - This is the exact passage Very quotes on PDF p.37. The OCR on p.743 reads: "Assuming this, we arrive at the result that the corpuscle is about f X 10 -13 cms. in diameter. The ionic equivalent being about 4 (± 1) x 10 ~ w e. s. units, we find for the electrostatic tension and pressure at the surface of the corpuscle, about 2.10 82 dynes." So Fessenden himself wrote "dynes" and said "diameter". The deep read found that 2e32 comes out of E^2/8pi only if the diameter is used as the radius. That slip, if it is one, is in Fessenden's original and not in Very's quotation. (The exponents are OCR text, so the page image should be checked.) - Fessenden goes on: "Taking Boys's value ... 6.65 x 10^-8, we get for the gravitational energy of the corpuscle about 10^-48 ergs. From this and the electrostatic stress we can calculate the volume elasticity, and we find it to be about 10[exponent garbled]." He also says "the density of the ether is about 0.66 and its rigidity about 6.10^[?]", and he gives a velocity for the "compressional or gravitational wave" of "approximately 5.10^[?] cms. per second". This is where Very's "volume-elasticity" idea comes from. Very's 10^73 formula, (pressure)^(3/2)/surface, may be his own version of Fessenden's calculation. The exponent in Fessenden's text needs the page image (PDF p. 4 of 6). - Fessenden's picture: one vortex filament ("the umbilical cord of the universe") in a fluid he calls the "etheron". Corpuscles are vortex singularities. Gravity is the change of ether density around corpuscles, caused by electrostatic stress. Inertia is electromagnetic inductance. About 1,000 corpuscles make up a hydrogen atom, and about 200,000 a mercury atom. Compare Very's 1,844 electrons per hydrogen atom and electrical mass (claim 5). - p.741: an experiment Fessenden reports. A glass prism 1 cm by 1 cm, stretched with 30e6 dynes, gave a change of density of about 3e-5 and a change of light velocity of about 0.7e-5. The F^2/8 pi k stress needed to give the same change of velocity electrically (the Kerr effect) was about 25e6 dynes. Fessenden himself calls the close agreement "probably accidental". This is an experimental claim by Fessenden that bears on Very's bound-ether/refraction argument (claim 4): the density of the medium sets the speed of light.

D. Fessenden, "Inertia and Gravitation", Science N.S. XII, No. 296, pp. 325-328, 31 Aug 1900 (priority 2/3)

URL [web]: https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1629562/1629562_djvu.txt - An earlier statement of the same theory. "The inertia of matter is due to the electromagnetic inductance of the corpuscular charges, and gravitation is due to the change of density of the ether surrounding the corpuscles..." Ether elasticity "6 x 10^20" (OCR). Surface stress "of the order 10^2?" (exponent garbled). - Fessenden describes how his 1890-91 theory, that all atoms carry equal charges of both signs, was refused publication for about a year, and was printed in Electrical World with an editorial that called it "probably wrong". A history-of-reception item (priority 4 context; it concerns Fessenden, not Very). - He proposes a test: "The weight of matter in a gaseous state should be very slightly greater than in the solid state, and iron should weigh slightly less when dissolved."

E. Fessenden, "Transformation of Gravitational Waves into Ether Vortices", Science N.S. XXXVIII, No. 981, pp. 553-554, 17 Oct 1913 (priority 3)

URL [web]: https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1638835/1638835_djvu.txt - He says gravitational (compressional) waves in a frictionless ether must shed part of their energy as vortices, which are "exactly similar, irrespective of the intensity of the gravitational wave". Hence "every continuous medium theory must involve quanta". He also writes that "quanta are a necessary consequence of motion due to central attraction ... nucleus resonance gives quanta, whether the resonant nucleus be the sun or the positive electron." - Bearing: the background to Very's synchronous gravitational pulsation of the aura (claim 6), and to quanta arising from vortex structure (claims 1-2).

F. Fessenden, "Gyroscopic Quanta", Science N.S. XXXIX, No. 1006, p. 533, 10 Apr 1914 (priority 2: the note Very cites on p.41)

URL [web]: https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1640236/1640236_djvu.txt ; DOI 10.1126/science.39.1006.533.b - Full text read. Fessenden: from his "electrostatic-doublet vortex theory of matter ... the energy radiated when a distortional ether wave strikes an atom will be given off in quanta and be proportional to the frequency." His analogy: a gyroscope held in the hand while the body turns. One direction has no effect; the other upsets the gyroscope and reverses its axis. "the amount of work done in upsetting the gyroscope varies directly as the angular velocity of rotation of the body, i. e., ... is directly proportional to the frequency." - Fessenden also writes that "the electrons can be numerically equal to the atomic weight", and that "the positive nucleus may be made to vanish, i. e., can be formed of a number of negative electrons". - Bearing on claim 2: the deep read found that Very gives no link between the overturn energy and the frequency nu. Fessenden's note, which Very says his view "agrees in a general way" with, does supply one: the upsetting work is proportional to angular velocity, and so to frequency. This is the missing step in Very's own principle, stated by his named source. Bearing on claim 5: a nucleus made of negative electrons, and no positive electron, is Fessenden's view too.

G. Very, "The Conservation of Mass and the Passing of Matter", Science N.S. XXX, No. 771, pp. 491-496, 8 Oct 1909 (priority 1)

URL [web]: https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1635576/1635576_djvu.txt - Very's own earlier statement of claim 7 and part of claim 3. "That the mass of a body is nothing but the energy of its ethereal rotation is a view which I have held tentatively." "There is only one energy in the physical universe, but two sorts of mass, temporary for ether, permanent for matter, both of them being energy of ethereal rotation." "if atoms are destroyed in radioactive transformations, there must be some other part of the universe where these atoms are reproduced ... the ether is the great storehouse of energy." - He proposes particles of matter as "vacuities in an exceedingly dense ether, kept from collapsing by the centrifugal pressure of a rapidly rotating shell". This is an early form of the 1919 rotating electron that "would collapse" without its elasticity (claim 3). - He explains the slower speed of light in water by "minute, alternating deflections of the light ray in passing through the bound ether attached to the molecules", with "no necessary change in the true ethereal velocity". This is an early form of the 1919 bound-ether refraction argument (claim 4). - He cites his earlier papers: "A Cosmic Cycle", American Journal of Science 13, 193 (March 1902), which defines energy as "the modification of ethereal rotation", and "An Inquiry into the Cause of the Nebulosity around Nova Persei", AJS July 1903. In the latter he argues that particles left the star at nearly light speed under a non-gravitational, magnetic-like control at stellar distances. - He uses Kaufmann's mass-velocity experiment, Lebedew's and Nichols & Hull's light-pressure results, and J. J. Thomson's positive rays as the experimental basis.

H. Other Very items listed by IA (not read; for later runs)

  • jstor-1639067 Very, Science 1915-12-03 pp. 800-805 (untitled in IA metadata)
  • jstor-1629655 "Scientific Nomenclature" (1902)
  • jstor-1636137 "The Norwood 'Meteorite' a Fraud" (1910) and jstor-1634788 "Fall of a Meteorite in Norwood" (1910). Very first reported a meteorite fall and then exposed it as a fraud. This bears on his care with evidence (priority 4, character of the record).
  • lunarterrestrial00veryiala, "Lunar and terrestrial albedoes" (1917) = Westwood Occasional Papers No. 1
  • Fessenden: jstor-1628276 "The Electrical Theory of Gravitation" (1901); jstor-1629716 "Physics at the American Association" (1900)