Notes on “The World” by Rene Descartes

[BecomingTesla]

I've mentioned before that I feel there is a strong need to revisit almost the entire corpus of scientific literature, from the inception of the scientific method all the way up to roughly ~1900, to discern (a) the fundamental errors in astronomical theory, in particular the lack of a physical explanation for Newton's heuristic for gravitation and (b) to re-introduce/discover electromagnetic theories/models that were previously rejected on theoretical grounds, such as the work of Tesla or Birkeland. I think it would be best to share my notes as I review this literature over the course of the next several years, and I think this community would appreciate it. The place where we need to begin, if we're going to proceed in a completely mechanical explanation of the Universe, must be with Descartes. In his text, The World, Descartes lays out the only purely mechanical cosmology of his era, and four hundred years prior to their discover, makes the prediction that (a) the Sun is formed of plasma (b) that there is a vortex of plasma surrounding the Sun, which is generated by its own motion and in which the planets sit, and (c) that each planet itself has some form of vortex in which its moons sit. Element (b) exists today as the heliospheric current sheet, and (c) exist as the magnetospheres of the planets. Given the law of natural design that "form facilitates function", there can be no reason for the existence of the heliospheric current sheet other than to direct the motion of the planets. These are my notes as I've written them thus far, and I'll continue to post them in this thread as I read through this primary work.

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Notes on “The World” by Rene Descartes

Introduction:
This work is a combination of Descartes’ two central pieces, Treatise on Light and Treatise on Man, both of which were published posthumously in 1664. Both form the backbone of the single treatise. Included as appendices are materials on the formation of color from Meteors, and material optics in general from Dioptrics. The core doctrine of The World is that of “mechanism” - all matter is completely inert, and Descartes’ goal is to provide a mechanistic cosmology, resting on the laws of nature and a mechanistic physiology - in essence, the entire cosmos exists as a collection of physical mechanisms which operate with one another, based on natural laws [these laws may be described mathematically, via approximation]. There are four fundamental tenets that Descartes tries to argue: (1) The stability of planetary obits and their moons can be accounted for on a mechanist basis, if we envisage the planets being carried in a sea of fluid matter which takes the form of a vortex - this assertion about the physical structure of the solar system is ultimately correct; the plasma radiated by the Sun as the solar wind extends out to the heliopause, and forms the heliospheric current sheet that moves as vortex of charged plasma, driven by the Sun’s own rotation. (2) The propagation of light from he Sun can be explained in terms of the centrifugal effects of its axial rotation - this is interesting; if light propagates as a longitudinal wave, as Tesla says it must and as is implied by the number of similar phenomena/characteristics between light and sound, then the longitudinal waves need some form of rotational motion at the source of propagation to create the shear force necessary to polarize the wave. (3) All vital functions can be accounted for mechanistically. (4) Perceptual cognition can be accounted for in terms of a mechanistic psycho-physiology.

The first five chapters of the Treatise on Light form the introduction, suggesting that nothing but matter and motion are needed to explain natural phenomena. He argues that the material world consists exclusively of matter [there is no vacuous space], and that this matter is comprised of three sizes of corpuscles. Chapters six through fourteen then use this micro-corpuscular theory of matter, along with the laws of motion, to set out a completely mechanistic cosmology. The text ends, unfinished, with chapter fifteen. In the first chapter, Descartes argues that our perception of a sensation does not need to resemble the cause of the sensation, and provides examples positive of his conclusion. In the second chapter, he establishes this argument further. Beginning with the nature of light, he points out that [at the time] there are only two kinds of bodies in which light is found [or emanates from]: stars, and flame - the latter being the best starting point due to familiarity. He argues that the fire moves the ‘subtler’ parts of the wood [the molecules] and separates them from one another, transforming them into fire, air, and smoke, and leaving the grosser pieces as ash. All that we need to interpret the process of burning mechanically are the corpuscular elements of the wood and their subsequent motion. On the issue of motion, Descartes asserted that the power by which an object moves, and the powers that determine the motion of the object, as two separate forces. He argues that if the two were joined, then any object would have to stop completely, and a new force would have to act on it, before said object could move direction. Using a tennis ball as an example, he notes that there is no stop and no new exertion when the ball is reflected off a hard surface. The force of the ball is not modified by the impact, only the direction. In fact, Descartes goes on to tell us that the actual path of a moving body is determined by each part moving in the manner made least difficult for it by surrounding bodies.

Descartes asserts in chapter three that (a) change prevails throughout all of nature, but (b) the total amount of motion in the universe is conserved, although (c) this motion may be redistributed among the bodies in motion. These ideas tie into his mechanistic view of what determines solid from fluid: the microscopic bodies of any single object need force to separate from one another if they are stationary with respect to one another - they won’t move on their own. But if they are moving with respect to one another they will separate easily and at a reasonable rate. This ranking on the spectrum of fluidity provides the basis for Descartes’ theory of matter - the properties of matter are reduced to the rate at which their parts move with respect to one another. At the extreme fluid end of the spectrum is not actually air [gaseous matter], but in fact fire [plasma matter].

For Descartes, there is no vacuous space in the universe. This brings forward a question: how can objects move when there is no empty space for them to move into? His answer is simple: all motion is circular in some fashion [all motion moves in a kind of circuit], where matter moves through the plenum by means of large-scale displacement. As he begins to discuss light, he invokes only three main processes - the production of light, the transmission of light, and its reflection/refraction. Descartes’ model of light is drawn from fluid mechanics: it acts by means of mechanical pressure, and what needs to be explained is how this pressure is generated in the first place, how it is propagated, and why it behaves in certain geometrically defined way upon encountering other matter - either opaque or transparent. Light is generated by “fiery” bodies, transmitted through the “air”, and is refracted/reflected by “terrestrious bodies”. For Descartes, these three forms reflect three distinct “sizes” of matter - very fine, fine, and gross, respectively. By chapter six, using the elements established, he begins to construct his mechanical universe. This universe is perfectly “solid” - it has no empty spaces - which fills its universal container, and is divided into parts distinguished simply by their different motions.

The three laws of motion provided by Descartes are designed to describe the behaviors of bodies in collision: (1) a body conserves its motion exception in collision, when, (2) the total motion of the colliding bodies is conversed but may be redistributed amongst them, and (3) a body’s tendency to move is instantaneous, and can only be rectilinear, because only rectilinear motion can be determined in an instant - ‘only motion in a straight line is entirely simple and has a nature which may be grasped wholly in an instant’. Motion in a circle or some other path would require us to consider ‘at least two of its instants, or rather two of its parts, and the relation between them.’ Specifically, he asserts that the direction of motion, its ‘tendency to motion, or action’, is always rectilinear [this stands in stark contrast with Einstein’s nonmechanical explanation of gravitation through GR, which expresses that no motion is rectilinear, but in fact all motion is circular, as the presence of mass supposed curves space.] Descartes uses as evidence that (a) a stone released from a string does not carry on in a curved motion, but moves at a tangent to the circle, and (b) the stone, in its circular motion, exerts a force away from the center - the stone is “forced” into the circle by the constraint of the the sling.

Chapters eight through twelve use the theory established by Descartes previously to assert his heliocentric cosmology, from the formation of the Sun and stars, to the planets and comets, the Earth and Moon, and finally to gravitation and the tides. The key to this whole cosmology is the vortex [which we now know exists, empirically.] Because the universe is a plenum, for any part of it to move it is necessary for other parts of it to move, and the simplest form of displacement motion is a closed curve. For Descartes, the Sun is a “perfectly fluid” [which, for Descartes, is a plasmatic body, a ‘fiery’ body], which rotates at a greater rate than the surrounding bodies and emanate ‘fine matter’ form their surfaces, These concentrations of the first element form the fluid, round bodies as stars, and the pushing action at their surfaces is “what we shall take to be light.” The universe as Descartes represents it consists of an indefinite number of contiguous vortices, each with a star at the center, and planets revolving around this center carried along by the matter between them. Occasionally, planets may be moving so quickly as to be carried outside the solar system, where they become comets. Likewise, the celestial matter in which the Earth is embedded [the magnetosphere] moves faster at one side of the planet than at the other, and this gives the Earth a ‘spin’ or rotation, which in turn sets up a centrifugal effect, creating a small vortex around itself, in which the Moon is carried. Descartes rejects the idea of weight as an intrinsic property.

Descartes’ purpose in the last three chapters is to explain his theory of light. For Descartes’ physical optics, the first element makes up the light-bearing bodies - stars, the second element makes up the medium in which light is propagated, the celestial fluid, and the bodies which reflect/refract them are the made of the third element. The laws of motion show us that, given the rotation of the Sun and the matter around it, there is a radial pressure which spreads outward from the Sun along straight lines from its center. This pressure is manifested as ‘a trembling movement’, a property which is suitable for light.

Descartes achievement in the Treatise on Light is twofold: (1) his vortex theory explains the planetary obits in an intuitive, completely mechanical fashion - the rapid rotation of the Sun at the center of the solar system, through its centrifugal force, causes the ‘pool’ of second matter to swirl around it, holding planets in orbits as a whirlpool holds bodies in circular motion around it (2) this account also enables Descartes to account of all known principle properties of light, giving a physical basis for geometrical optics.

[antosarai]

(...)the fundamental errors in astronomical theory, in particular the lack of a physical explanation for Newton's heuristic for gravitation...

Why is the lack of a physical explanation for Newton's gravitation a fundamental error and the same lack of a physical explanation for Coulomb's force not?

[BecomingTesla]

If there is no physical, or mechanical theory to explain the Coulomb force, then as far as I'm concerned it's in the same position as gravitation - I don't believe in action at a distance. Any force that exerts itself from one object to another means that either (a) the two objects are in direct contact with another, or (b) that there exists some medium between the two objects that mediates the force from one to another. If not, that means that two objects can literally interact with one another despite the fact that they never have any form of communication with one another - they would explicitly have to acquire new information about a specific object without receiving that new data from any kind of source, and that is impossible.

The Coulomb force, as I understand, exerts itself from one particle to another as the result of a mediated action between the two particles through the electromagnetic medium - which, if we're looking at the Universe through mechanics, absolutely must exist, if light exists in any form as a wave. I don't care what every mathematician in the Universe would like say, light doesn't get to be the only physical wave in the Universe that doesn't need a physical medium to propagate, and waves don't get to mediate themselves through mathematical objects. A field is, literally, a metaphysical object constructed by a collection of numerical values. Light doesn't travel through the electromagnetic "field" anymore that two vectors can cause car-crash on the highway. If we're discussing a physical wave, it has to travel through a physical medium. The logic is really that simple, and it's a matter of whether you accept mathematical formalism in your system of natural philosophy or not - I do not. Mathematics, linguistically, does nothing but describe phenomena. That's all that mathematical equations or objects do - they're nothing but sentences ands words, exactly like the ones I'm typing now. The value of mathematics is the degree of precision that allows you to describe a phenomena in a way where you can engineer the phenomena to achieve a distinct, quantifiable reaction. Saying that light travels through the electromagnetic "field" is the most literal example of confusing the map for the terrain that I can imagine.

Either light travels as a wave, and there is a physical medium that propagates the wave, or light exists as a particle and there is no medium whatsoever. But you can't have the wave without the medium, and a rational system of natural philosophy doesn't allow wave-particle duality. The two are mutually exclusive, they're two completely different physical concepts. A "particle" is a single, concrete, physical objects that exists independently. A "wave" is a form of motion - describable by a specific mathematical function, which is why it has to be propagated by a physical medium. To say that light is a wave and a particle is saying that it's a form of motion, and discrete object, at the same time. It's a logical contradiction.

[scowie]

I don't think Tesla said that regular light propagates as a longitudinal wave, but rather that longitudinal signals could be sent using the earth as an antenna: http://amasci.com/tesla/tmistk.html

Objects interact via forces, mainly electromagnetic ones so I think I'd say that there is really no "contact" at all. There is certainly not an exchange of force-carrying particles anyway. Objects (fundamentally just force waves themselves) send force waves out to each other that interact and take a finite time to propagate. I generally think of light as being more of an emission (not photons though!) than a disturbance of something already present. I could concede that there is a medium *but* each light source would have to have it's own individual ether and although these can merge, this can, in some cases (cosmological ones), happen fully only after lightyears of propagation. I say this because it is apparent to me that light from different sources is capable of travelling though the same region of space at differing velocities. Light from a high velocity light source is capable of overtaking light from a slower one (measured with respect to ourselves)...

The time dilation in type 1a supernova light curves tells me that the light emitted from the high velocity luminous matter at the start of the supernova races ahead of the light emitted later after the surrounding interstellar medium has put the brakes on. Hence, the further away a supernova is, the greater the lead the initial light is able to build up over that from tail end of the supernova, giving the illusion of a greater duration. Unless, of course, you wanna believe that "expanding spacetime" is responsible for this, but I am hoping people here have more sense than that!

[BecomingTesla]

Tesla Sees Evidence Radio and Light Are Sound - 04.08.1934 - New York Times

"It is true," said Mr. Tesla, "that many scientific minds envisaged the theory of a gaseous ether, but it was rejected again and again because in such a medium longitudinal waves would be propagated with infinite velocity. Lord Kelvin conceived the so-called contractile ether, possessing properties which would result in a finite velocity of longitudinal waves. In 1885, however, an academic dissertation was published by Prof. DeVolson Wood, an American, at a Hoboken institution, which dealt with a gaseous ether in which the elasticity, density and specific heat were determined with rare academic elegance. But, so far, everything pertaining to the subject was purely theoretical."

What, then can light be if it is not a transverse vibration? That was the question he asked himself and set out to find the answer.

"I consider this extremely important," said Mr. Tesla. "Light cannot be anything else but a longitudinal disturbance in the ether, involving alternate compressions and rarefactions. In other words, light can be nothing else than a sound wave in the ether."

This appears clearly, Mr. Tesla explained, if it is first realized that, there being no Maxwellian ether, there can be no transverse oscillation in the medium. The Newtonian theory, he believes, is in error, because it fails entirely in not being able to explain how a small candle can project particles with the same speed as the blazing sun, which has an immensely higher temperature.

"We have made sure by experiment," said Mr. Tesla, "that light propagates with the same velocity irrespective of the character of the source. Such constancy of velocity can only be explained by assuming that it is dependent solely on the physical properties of the medium, especially density and elastic force.

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Tesla was very clear about his opinions of light towards the middle of the 20th century. The reason why no one considers light a longitudinal ray is because of polarization - at first glance, and as Fresnel suggested, this polarization couldn't be conceived as possible in a longitudinal wave, and so everyone thought that light was actually a transverse wave. But, this isn't the case. Longitudinal waves are capable of polarization through one particularly important way - when a pressure wave passes over the interface of a vortex, the shear force produced by the rotation of the vortex can create the polarization, if the vortex that produced the longitudinal wave is out of phase with the receiving vortex, i.e., "involving alternating compressions and rarefactions".

A extraordinarily large portion of Tesla's research, which was very successful, was his research of light production in gaseous mediums via high frequency alternating current and electrostatic forces, within vacuum chambers - basically, the exact same way the Sun produces light within the boundary of the heliosphere.

[scowie]

"light propagates with the same velocity irrespective of the character of the source"

Unfortunately that suggests to me that Tesla was under the same illusions as everybody else. The velocity of light depends on the character of the most significant body of matter in the vicinity of the source. In the case of the supernovae I mentioned, the source *is* the most significant body of matter in the region. On the other hand, down here on planet earth, with any light source moving or stationary, the most significant body of matter is always the earth itself, hence all light propagating down here moves at a fixed speed with respect to the non-rotating centre of the earth, as was revealed by the Michelson & Gale experiment. Maybe if Tesla had the benefit of supernova light curve data he would have thought differently.

[webolife]

Some interjections from a different point of view--
I observe and surmise that:
1) light as a physical object cannot transversely "wave" through a non-physical intermediary space,
2) light as an ejected/emitted corpuscle defies polarization, among other optical effects,
3) light as a "wave" must be a disturbance in an aetheric medium (but wave-particle duality is illogical, so what is causing the disturbance, and furthermore, what evidence is there of such an aether?),
4) light is experienced as (a la Rene DesCartes) a pressure against a material surface, either a variably absorptive/reflective filter or dye, or an electrically elastic/reflecting (mirror-like) surface, or a photosensitive device (retina, film, etc.), not as an object moving through space,
5) light appears to be the only rectilinear action (unlike materials in motion which generally move in a "circular" manner influenced by or interacting with other materials in "gravi-electric" fields...),
6) relativistic considerations about "c" are problematic at best, illogical and contradictory at worst,
7) "c" cannot be directly measured, and is presumptively infused mathematically into the measurement of physical phenomena, then inferred circularly from those same measurement formulae or protocols,
8) it is possible that light itself does not move, but is a "gravitation" between two objects at a distance, just like the interaction of earth and sun, or moon and earth, etc.,
9) no amount of particle physicists' hypothesizing about imagined gravitons, WIMPS, "quantums", or various theories of aether have satisfactorily solved the mystery of the interaction of two bodies at a distance, of which electrostatics and magnetism, gravitation and light are our common daily experience, yet somehow we just can't accept the possibility of action at a distance, despite this common experience...
10) light is radiant, geometrically describable with optical ray/vector diagrams, and instant in action upon contact, so...
Light is neither a particle nor a wave, but an effect of a universal field of pressure, part of a unified force that manifests as gravity, voltage , electrostatics and magnetism at various levels and hierarchies.

[BecomingTesla]

Treatise on Light - Chapter I:
The first thing Descartes asserts is that it is possible for there to be a difference between the way in which we process light, as a signal [he uses the word ‘sensation’, but if we’re going to start thinking of all things in terms of circuit/wireless theory, then we are receiving light as a signal], and the way light is broadcast as a signal - “what is in the objects that produces the sensation in us, that is, what is in the flame or in the Sun that we term ‘light’.” He argues against the idea that the reception of the signal is always identical to the emitter of the signal. “…convinced that the ideas that we have in our thought are completely like the objects from which they proceed, I know of no compelling argument for the this.” In fact, he argues in the contrary.
He begins with the example of language itself. Words, as a collection of symbols, don’t bare any resemblance with the objects that they represent. The symbol “tree” bares no resemblance at all the tree itself, and yet, when we hear the word we have no issue connecting this symbol to the image of the object. If words, “which signify something only through human convention [the exact same way that any mathematical symbol does or object does], are sufficient to make us think of things to which they bear no resemblance, why could not Nature also have established some sign which would make us have a sensation of light, even if that sign which would make us have a sensation of light, even if that sign had in it nothing that resembled this sensation.” In essence, if Nature uses light as a form of communication, it could symbolically represent some aspect of the object emitting the signal, the object “speaking”, without baring any resemblance to the object itself. When a person opens their mouth, moves their tongue and creates sounds, these sounds don’t bare any resemblance to the actual idea that they’re trying to evoke. The sound itself is nothing but the vibration of the air molecules against our ears. If the sound had to transmit information that resembled the actual idea of the action, then it must evoke in our mind the state of the air molecules - but it doesn’t. It evokes the symbolic image attached to the sound.
Descartes offers another example: touch, and he uses the spectrum of “tickle and pain.” If you pass a feather lightly over a child’s lips, the child feels a tickle, but the tickle doesn’t necessarily resemble something within or about the feather. [This example feels a bit weak.] For pain, he mentions that a soldier may be wounded in battle, but during the fight he won’t be aware of it. As the battle calms down, and he cools off, he becomes aware of the wound - it seems that at *this* moment the soldier was wounded, not previously. As he removes his armor though, he realizes that he is not wounded - it was a misplaced buckle causing him agitation. If the buckle transmitted any knowledge about its form in his thought, there wouldn’t have been any assumption that he was wounded in the first place.

Treatise on Light - Chapter II:
Here, he mentions the two kinds of bodies in which “light is found” [this is interesting, for Descartes, light itself is some kind of quality that exists in matter, that communicates its existence some way upon the eye], which are fire and the stars. He will begin to try and explain his argument through an analysis of fire first.
When fire burns wood, “we can see with our eyes that it moves the small parts of the wood, separating them from one another, thereby transforming the finer parts into fire, air, and smoke, and leaving the larger parts as ashes.” For Descartes, the entire action of “burning” can be resolved down to motion within the constituent parts of the wood.
Descartes argues that since the it is impossible “to conceive of a body moving another unless it itself is moving”, that the “body of the flame” is comprised of ‘minute parts, which move independently of one another with very quick and violent motion; and as they move in this way, they push against and move those parts of the body that they touch and which do not offer them too much resistance.’ [Descartes, roughly ~350yrs before the discovery of plasma, is in my opinion correctly describing the basic structure of plasma, as well as the principle of chemical reactions, where ions are pulled from one body to another based on their electrical affinity.] Likewise, based on the minuteness of their size, Descartes correctly asserts the rapid velocity of the particles based on their need to exert a force on the other body [if they’re too slow *and* too small, there is no way they could exert any measurable force]. He likewise asserts that the speed of their direction has absolutely nothing to do with the direction of their motion - each individual particle will move along the path of least resistance offered to it by its environment.
Finally, Descartes asserts that it is *this* motion alone, the interactions between the minute particles of the flame itself, that constitutes “heat” and “light” - “we shall be able to say that it is this motion alone that is called now ‘heat’ and now ‘light’, according to the different effects it produces.

Treatise on Light - Chapter III:
“I believe that there are innumerable different motions which endure perpetually in the world.” He offers the motions of the celestial bodies, the rising and falling of the rain, the constant agitation of the air by the wind, that the sea is never at rest, that the river flows endless [ironically, all of these phenomena are directly related to electricity]. “There is nothing anywhere which is not changing.” [Here we have Descartes invoking Heraclitus - "everything flows.”] For Descartes, it’s not just fire that is formed of minutes parts, constantly in motion - “every other body has such parts, even though their actions are not as violent.”
Descartes asserts that this constant motion itself - the total motion of all the constituent parts of the universe - can never cease. The motion of one body within the system may cease, but that’s only because it has transferred its motion to another part of the system in whole. The total remains constant. [I’d assert that this is incorrect, if *everything* changes, then the condition of the Universe itself must also change, endless. It’s present condition of motion must eventually change to a rest, and that condition of rest must ultimately return to some form of motion.]
Descartes argues that it is the motion of these bodies alone that cause the infinite amount of variation that we see within the Universe, and he explicitly pinpoints the different between “bodies that are hard and those that are fluid.” He asserts that if two bodies are touching one another, and are not in the process of any kind of separating motion, then some force *must* be necessary to begin the process of separation. Once they are ‘incline’ to rest with one another, they will not prompt themselves to change this state. However, if the two bodies are already in motion, and already moving away from each other, it should logically take less force to separate them than if they were at rest with one another.
Arguing this, Descartes says that the only difference between a hard body and a fluid body is the measure of how easily its constituent parts can be separated from one another. To make the hardest body, all of the parts of the body must be perfectly touching one another, so that there is no space at all between them. To make the most fluid body, all its parts must be moving away from each other in the most diverse and rapid way possible. “I believe that every body approaches these two extremes to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the degree to which its parts are int he process of separating themselves from one another.”
For Descartes, “after flame, there is nothing more fluid than air.” [I find it, likewise, remarkable that Descartes was able to accurately place plasma at the end of the hard-fluid spectrum. He correctly asserts that plasma is the most separated form of matter.]

Treatise on Light - Chapter IV:
Descartes moves on the question of why we cannot perceive air, even though it is just as much a physical body as another other. Before anything else, he asserts that “all bodies, whether hard or fluid, are made from the the same matter, that it’s impossible to conceive of the parts of this matter ever composing a more solid body, or occupying less space, than they do when each of them is touched on all sides by the others surrounding it.” Essentially, Descartes asserts that no where in the Universe is there any “vacuous” space. All space is filled up with some form of primary matter.
This raises a critical difficulty: how can any body possibly move through space, if every region of space is already occupied by some form of matter? “I would have trouble replying…had I not learned from a variety of observations that all motions that occur in the world are in some way circular. That is, when a body leaves its place, it always enters into that of another, and this latter into that of another, and so on to the last body, which at the same instant occupies the first.”
We don’t usually notice this circuital motion when bodies are moving in air because we’re used to seeing air as a vacuum - as empty space. But he offers the example of a fish in water - if the fish doesn’t break the surface of the water, they seem to cause no motion in the water at all, even though they’re passing through it at great speed. Not all of the water is pushed as they move through it, only enough to occupy the space that was just vacated by the fish. He offers another example - that water under air pressure will not leave a container, because there is no empty space for the water to move into. There must be an opening in which the air, displaced by the water, can rush into the container to occupy the void left by the fluid.
More generally, Descartes affirms that like our natural body heat, or the weight of our own clothes, we cannot perceive a body by our sense unless it is the cause of some change in our sense organs. “You can see from this that it is no wonder that there are many spaces around us in which we do not perceive any body by our senses, even though they contain bodies no less than the spaces in which we perceive them the most.” However, he warns that it can’t be thought that the air which we breath is as ‘solid’ as water or earth. We must maintain that it is much rarer, given that the steam produced from a drop of water may occupy space much larger than the volume occupied by the drop itself. For this reason - the fact that there must be space in between the minute bodies of the rarefied air - there must be other bodies, mixed with the air, that fill the gaps left behind.

Treatise on Light - Chapter V:
“The Philosophers maintain that above the clouds there is a kind of air much subtler than ours, which is not composed of terrestrial vapors, as our air is, but constitutes an element in itself. They say too that above this air there is yet another body, more subtle still, which they call the element of fire. And they add that these two elements are mixed with water and earth to make up all the bodies below. Thus I shall merely by following their opinion if I say this subtle air and this element of fire fill the gaps between the parts of the gross air that we breath.”
Descartes begins this chapter by describing his theory on the character of the elements. The first, the ‘element of fire’, is the most subtle and penetrating fluid in the world [if we think in terms of the protons and electrons that constitute plasma, Descartes is correct.] “I imagine its parts to be much smaller and to move much more quickly than any of the parts of other bodies.”
The second element, the ‘element of air’, is likewise a very subtle fluid in comparison with the ‘third’ element, but compared with the first we need to attribute ‘some size and shape to each of its parts and to imagine them as more or less round and joined together like grains of sand or dust.’ Given the size of the first matter, and the gaps of space which always form themselves between the parts of the second matter, Descartes asserts that there is no place anywhere where “this second element be so pure that there is not always a little of the first matter with it.”
“Beyond these two elements, I accept only a third, namely that of earth.” [Interesting, then how does water, or a ‘fluid’ state of matter, tie into his cosmology?] The parts of this matter are larger and slower than those of the second, ‘as those of the second are in comparison to those of the first.’ The parts of this type of matter move very little or not at all.
For Descartes, all matter can be described thus, in terms of the size of its particles, their shape, various motions, and their arrangement. “Flame, for example, whose form requires that its part move very quickly and in addition have some size…cannot last long without dying out; for either the size of its parts, in giving them the force to act against other bodies, will cause their motion to diminish, or the violence of their agitation, in causing them to break up on smashing into the bodies they encounter, will cause a diminution of their size.”
Descartes suggests that ‘each part of matter always tends to one of their forms and, once it has been so reduced, never tends to leave that form.’ For that reason, he asserts that every body that is large enough to be counted ‘among the notable parts of the universe’ each have the form of one of these elements. Only on the surface are do we find mixed bodies of matter. Following this logic, there can generally consider all the bodies of the universe as composed of only three kinds of matter in principle: (1) the Sun and stars are comprised of the first element (2) the heavens as the second [here, he is incorrect. The space between the planets is not comprised of a gas, but of the same primary matter that forms the Sun] (3) and the Earth/planets/comets as the third.

Treatise on Light - Chapter VI:
Now that we’ve reviewed his ideas on the nature and behavior of matter, Descartes begins constructing the view of his “new world.” The first principle is that in this world, there is no empty space which can be perceived. However, to remove the issue of infinity, he allows us to assume an imagined limit on our perspective of this world that exists at the edge of the ‘principle stars in the firmament.’ This matter exists without any form, or discernible qualities like temperature, weight, color, taste, etc. This matter is a “real, perfectly solid [solid, not hard] body, which uniformly fills the entire length, breath, and apathy of this great space.” This solid body of matter can be subdivided infinitely, and the parts can take on as many motions as we can conceive. This division is determined entirely by the diversity of their motions, rather than any kind of empty space between them.

Treatise on Light - Chapter VII:
Here Descartes begins to discuss the laws that are employed by Nature to generate change in his new world. This matter which Descartes has populated the world with has been in various degrees of motion since its inception. From this it follows “that from the time they begin to move, they also begin to change and diversify their motions by colliding with one another.” These various changes can be described by certain laws.
(1) Each particular part of matter always continues in the same state unless collision with others forces it to change its state. “If the part has some size, it will never become smaller unless others divide it; if it is round or square, it will never change shape unless others force it to; if it is brought to rest in some lace it will never depart from that place unless others drive it out; and if it has once begun to move, it will always continue with an equal force until others stop or retard it.” [This makes me think about neutrinos, and our idea that they ‘simply pass through matter’ because of its incredibly size. This idea must be incorrect - the extraordinary velocity of the particles make up for their size, and I’d argue that in extraordinarily minute scales that we can’t observe, neutrinos are actually tearing apart all matter they come in contact with - this is why they may be the cause of radiative decay.] And for Descartes, he knows “of no motion other than that which is easier to conceive of than the lines of geometers, by which bodies pass from one place to another and successively occupy all the space in between.” Likewise, Descartes makes a clear distinction between motion and rest.
(2) One one of these bodies pushes another it cannot give the other nay motion except by losing as much of its own motion at the same time; nor can it take away any of the other’s motion unless its own is increased by the same amount.
(3) When a body is moving, even if its motion most often takes place along a curved line, nevertheless each of its parts individually tends always to continue moving along a straight line. “For example, if we make a wheel turn on its axle, even though its parts go in a circle, nevertheless their inclination is to go straight ahead, as appears clearly if on of them is accidentally detached from the others, for as soon as it is free its motion ceases to be circular and continues in a straight line.” Only motion in a straight line is simple, and which has a nature that may be grasped wholly in an instant [the rate of change, or slope, for any straight line is always a constant, so that it’s character can be determined easily at any given point.] “By contrast, to conceive of circular motion, or any other possible motion, it is necessary to consider at least two of its instants, and the relation between them.”

Treatise on Light - Chapter VIII - On the Formation of the Sun and the Stars in this New World:
Descartes asserts that based on the nature of the initial matter of this new world, being that there is no empty space within it at all (a) any motion of one of its piece must have resulted in the motion of all of its components so that (b) this initial force distributed itself as evenly and equally as possible, meaning that the large majority of matter in the universe must exist in the second state [for Descartes, this is the “air” of the heavens - for us, this is the rarified plasma of the interstellar medium.]
Because all of this matter was perfectly solid, no single one of its constituent parts could have initially moved in a straight line. All of this initial movement of matter must have begun in some circular form, in various ways. But, “we should not imagine that they all came together to turn around a single center, but around many different ones, which we may imagine to be variously situated with respect to one another.”
For this reason, at those places nearest to these various centers of motion, the matter must have naturally been less agitated and smaller than at the places farthest away. Since all of the particles strive to move in a straight line, the largest and most agitated “had to describe the largest circles, those that approach a straight line most closely.” However, despite this segregation of particles, they all could have been made fairly equal - since some couldn’t move without the others moving, the more agitated and to communicate some of their motion to those that were less so, the larger had to break up to up occupy the spaces left by the smaller components, and “thus all the parts were soon arrange din order, each being more or less distant from the center around which it had taken its course, according as it was more or less large and agitated compared to the others.”
In this process of equally distributing force, the piece much smaller pieces which must have been broken from the secondary matter acquire a significantly higher speed, as well as an ability to change their shape at every moment to best accommodate itself to the places where it finds itself. And so, it took the form of the first element - fire, or plasma. These smaller piece of the first element are pushed back towards the centers around which the secondary matter that created them move, and in doing so they compose a “perfectly fluid” [completely fiery] and subtle round does which, because “they incessantly turn very much more quickly than and in the same direction as the parts of the second element surrounding them, have the force to increase the agitation of those parts to which they are closest and even to push the parts in every direction, just as they push one another.” It is this action, this pressure that the ball of primary matter at the center of the vortex exerts on the secondary matter, that he calls “light.” [In other words, the Sun exists as an electrostatic oscillator, exerting a constant degree of pressure on the vortex it sits in, and this pressure wave is mediated through the vortex to reach the Earth as light.]
For Descartes, there are “as many different heavens as there are stars, and since the number os stars is indefinite so too is the number of heavens.” To him, our solar system exists in a compartmentalized cell, connected by separated from any other cells that exist around other stars. What Descartes is describing here as the vortex of secondary matter exists, empirically, as the heliospheric current sheet. Although, the process seems to be reverse from what he described - the Sun is constantly emitting new particles out into space, forming the vortex. So it seems that first the Sun must form, and then we gain our vortex, not the other way around.

[webolife]

I largely agree with Descartes with respect to light pressure, including the direction of its vectors as being toward the center or source, vs emitted [directed outward] from that center or source.

[BecomingTesla]

@weboflife: I think you've misunderstood; Descartes never mentions an inward vector for the direction of light, as if the rays where traveling from the outside of the solar "cell" towards the Sun (if I understand you correctly). He suggested that the vortex of secondary matter within the solar "cell" directed primary matter words the center of the vortex, where it forms a perfectly spherical ball of primary matter. This matter is in an extremely agitated state due to the velocity of the matter and the reaction against the inward pressure of the vortex, and as it tries to release the agitation by via radiative pressure. This pressure propagates through the vortex as a wave - as light. There is still definitely a radiative, outward direction to the vector.

What I agree with, and Tesla said the exact same, is that within a vacuum chamber (like a neon tube, or the heliopause), light is produced via high frequency electrostatic pressure from some central oscillating electrode or button. That wave propagates longitudinally, as a pressure wave, with a polarization factor due to the shear force produced from the rotation of the vortex.

[webolife]

You're right. I didn't mean to attribute the centrally directed vector to Descartes, but that's certainly what my post reads like The late Dean Ward [JungleLord] had a similar view to Descartes' vortices, which I discussed at length with him a number of years ago on Thunderbolts. The central oscillation factor is akin to Ralph Sansbury's view [of subtrons]. I ponder a couple different synergisms of these ideas with my centropic pressure vector field, none of which are entirely satisfactory to me.

[BecomingTesla]

In the image drawn by Descartes, he depicts a cellular version of space, where multiple vortices are kept separated by borders that contain the vortex [the heliopause]. Likewise, Descartes asserts that the agitation of the vortex is at its weakest at the perimeter of the vortex, and increases as you move in towards the center [not sure about this, his wording is a bit tricky and the diagram is old…] In this way, planets that are closest to the Sun orbit around the Sun the fastest, and objects farthest from the Sun take the longest period to orbit.

Treatise on Light - Chapter IX - On the Origin and the Course of the Planets and Comets in General, and of Comets in Particular
Descartes first asserts that although the vast majority of matter in the heavens takes the first and second form, that some must remain in the third. There are two kinds of celestial objects of this nature - first, those “whose shapes were so extended and were sufficient able to prevent this [their division as result of collision] to such a degree that, when they collided with one another, it was easier for several of them to join together, and in this way to become larger rather than breaking up.” The second, “those which, having been the largest and most massive of all from the very start, were well able to break and shatter the others by striking them, but which were not in turn broken or shattered themselves.” Interesting - Descartes is advocating an accretion theory of planetary formation.
Descartes goes on to say that regardless of their initial agitation or motion, that these bodies eventually must have to move with the same agitation as the matter of the heaven that contained them. If the bodies were initially moving faster, then their constant collision with the matter in the heavens would have eventually reduced their speed, or, likewise, if they had been at rest, then the motion of the heavenly matter eventually would begin to carry them, “just as we constantly see that boats and other kinds of body that float on water…follow the course of the water they are in when there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.” Just the same, Descartes makes the comparison that large, bulky objects eventually carry much more force than the water pushing it, so that its’ motion can continue even after the water slows down. In contrast, light floating bodies have less force to continue moving. “If you imagine then, two rivers that join together at some point and separate shortly afterwards before their waters have had an opportunity to mix, the boats and other massive and heavy bodies that are borne by the course of the one river will be able to pass easily into the other river, whereas the lightest bodies will swerve away from it and will be thrown back…” [somehow, this makes me think of Mercury and its’ bizarre orbit…]
He makes the clear distinction between planet and comet as those bodies which range toward the center of any heaven [any object which orbits around cell’s main star] and those that pass across different heavens, respectively. He asserts that the number of comets most ultimately be significantly smaller than the number of “heavens” - cells- themselves, because they must have largely collided with and destroyed one another, or formed fewer, more massive collections. “It must also be noted that, when they pass in this way from one heaven to another, they always push in from of them a bit of matter from the heaven they are leaving, and they remain enveloped by it for some time until they have entered far enough within the limits of the other heaven.” [Descartes is predicting that cometary bodies development plasma sheaths around them as they travel through the heliosphere - once again, he is correct.]

Treatise on Light - Chapter X
The first thing Descartes notes about the planets is that while all of them tend towards the center of the cell they occupy, none of them could ever actually reach the center - the Sun occupies the center, and he suggests that no object can displace it. He says that if the planets had any more force than the secondary matter surrounding it, that it would fly off in a tangent towards the perimeter of the cell, away from the star. Once it begins this trajectory, Descartes asserts that the planet won’t stop moving until it exits the cell and becomes a comet. While Descartes makes constant reference to a figure of the planets, it’s hard to make out what he’s describing here. But, essentially, each planet becomes locked into its orbit because the force of the planet’s trajectory becomes equally balanced by the agitation of the secondary matter above it and below it. It is the medium that the planet is sitting in that keeps the planet “locked” in its region, where it is carried by the vortical nature of the medium around the Sun.
He compares the motions of the planets in the solar medium to boats in the river, to explain why the larger bodies travel slower around the Sun: “just as we observe that boats following the course of a river never move as fast as the water that bears them, nor indeed do the larger among them move as fast as the smaller, so too, even though the planets follow the course of the celestial matter without resistance, and move with the same agitation as it, that is not to say thereby that they ever move exactly as quickly as it. And indeed the inequality of their motion must bear some relation to the inequality between the size of their mass and the smallness of the parts of the heaven that surround them.” Once again, Descartes sees the picture of the solar system more clearly than Newton did: the motion of the planets around the Sun is caused by the interactions of the Sun, the planets, and the media in which they sit. There is no need for Newtonian action at a distance - the medium is the mechanism driving their motion.
“Now two things follow from this which seem to me to be very significant. The first is that the matter of the heaven must make the planets turn not only around the Sun, but also around their own center, except where there is something particular preventing them from doing so, and consequently that the matter must form around he planets small heavens that move in the same direction as the greater heaven.” Here, Descartes is discussing the development of magnetospheres around the planets, and their influence on the rotation of the planets. What is problematic though is that not every planet has a well-developed magnetosphere, so other elements must also be involved in this mechanism.
“The second is that, if two planets meet that are unequal in size but disposed to take their course in the heavens at the same distance from the Sun, and if one of them is exactly as massive as the other is larger, than the smaller of the two, moving more quickly than the larger one, must become joined to the little heaven around that larger heaven and turn continually around it.” This is interesting - Descartes is describing how satellites like the Moon should become locked into the magnetospheres of the planets. This has to due with “size and massiveness” - what are these factors actually, in terms of plasma physics and electromagnetism? The picture Descartes is clear though - every orbit is a product of the medium that the planets/satellites are resting in, the revolutions of the planet have to do with the vortical nature of the medium itself, and the rotations of the planets have told do with the development of their own smaller, plasmatic “cells.” Descartes ability to predict the existence of these features - the heliospheric current sheet, the magnetospheres of the planets, the cellular structure of the solar system - stand as a testament to his ability to view the solar system as a rational mechanism, rather than invoke mathematical heuristics and action at a distance. Newton’s gravity exists to solve the problem - “why do planets orbit the Sun?” While his mathematics are a remarkably successful heuristic, it makes absolutely no account of the existence of these mechanisms, the actual forces that work within it (magnetohydrodynamics, electrostatics, current flow, etc.), or how they work together. If “gravitation” is the mutual action of the Sun and the planets on one another, then this force absolutely must be the result of mutual interactions between these two parties and the medium that they rest in, otherwise, neither could possibly interact on the other.
According to Descartes, the heavenly matter in front of a planet is moving faster than the planet itself, pulling the planet forward in its wake. Likewise, this matter is trying to fly off at its tangent, toward the perimeter of the cell. In this way, the force the planet to spin about its center. This spin creates a mutual spin in matter behind the planet, and so this mutual spinning creates a constant “heaven” or cell around the planet.

Treatise on Light - Chapter XI - On Weight
Descartes now turns to “weight”, or the fact that the parts of the Earth and its components always move towards the center of the planet. For Descartes, this is as simple as the heavenly matter moving around the planet faster than the components of the planet itself in its rotation, and as a result “pushing the parts of the Earth back towards its center.” The force of gravitation on the planet is directly related to the existence of the planet’s magnetosphere, and its scope/speed. This same phenomena occurs to objects themselves as they enter the solar cell, and move towards the Sun until they find a balance of force within the medium.
Descartes’ diagram depicts a structure similar to the one that exists today as the magnetosphere - although, it is much much simpler. I wonder what he would think if he could have known about the Van Allen Belts, the plasma tubes that run along the magnetic field lines of the planets, or ionosphere/plasmasphere of the planet. As this object spins, Descartes says that the heavenly matter surrounding the planet moves much faster than the planet itself. But, since all of this matter is entrained by the matter of the solar cell, the parts of Earth cannot move away any further than they do from the center of the planet.

Treatise on Light - Chapter XII
This chapter discusses the tides of the seas, and just like Newton, Descartes uses the moon as the source of the motion.

Treatise on Light - Chapter XIII - On Light
Here, Descartes relies very heavily on a diagram, geometry, in a way that I don’t entirely understand. I’ll have to go over this section again at some point in the future. As it stands, right now, I am confused by what he’s talking about. I need clearer diagrams, or better supplementary information. Having reach an area that I do not understand, this is where I’ll end my note taking.

---

In the end, the extraordinary value of Descartes work is the fact that unlike Newton, or Einstein, he uses nothing but the actual physical mechanisms that we understand to exist in the Universe to explain planetary revolution/rotation. He invokes the Sun, the planets, and the medium that exists between them, and that’s all. Which is absolutely critical if we want to genuinely understand the solar system as a machine - space is not vacuous, as Newton suggested, and space-time is a metaphysical, geometric construction (it is not real). There is no possible way that gravitation may work through action at a distance, as Newton supposes in his heuristic, or through the curvature of space-time, which bares no physical implications whatsoever. The only possible way that the planets can revolve through the solar system is through the mechanism of the heliosphere.

This only answer to understanding the phenomena of celestial motion is the creation of more and more complex terrella/sollellus/kosmoligo machines - vacuum chambers, exactly like our own solar system.

[David]

By the beginning of the 1630s, however, Descartes embarked on a more ambitious plan to construct a systematic theory of knowledge, including physics. The result was The World (1633), an important text in that it essentially contains the blueprints of the mechanical/geometric physics, as well as the vortex theory of planetary motion, that Descartes would continue to refine and develop over the course of his scientific career.

On the whole, the vortex theory offered the natural philosopher a highly intuitive model of celestial phenomena that was compatible with the mechanical philosophy. The theory was regarded as superior to Newton's theory of universal gravitation since it did not posit a mysterious, occult quality (gravity) as the cause of the planetary orbits or the free-fall of terrestrial objects. The vortex theory likewise provided a built-in explanation for the common direction of all planetary orbits.

In the long run, however, Descartes' vortex theory failed for two fundamental reasons: first, neither Descartes nor his followers ever developed a systematic mathematical treatment of the vortex theory that could match the accuracy and predictive scope of the (continuously improving) Newtonian theory; and second, many attempts by Cartesian natural philosophers to test Descartes' various ideas on the dynamics of circularly moving particles (e.g., by using large spinning barrels filled with small particles) did not meet the predictions advanced in the Principles of Philosophy (The World).

7. Cartesian Cosmology and Astrophysics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-physics/

I admire your quest for the elusive mechanical explanation, yet at the same time strongly suspect you are running down a dead-end alley.

If you truly believe that Descartes’ vortex/ether based theory is the answer, you will need to develop all of the necessary mathematics -- a feat that Descartes was never able to adequately accomplish. A Herculean task that will take many years to complete and in all likelihood will never bear fruit.

But please do keep us apprised of any noteworthy progress.

[BecomingTesla]

@David: In the end, there's no question in my mind that the theory described by Descartes, in its entirety, is incorrect. I'm not here to champion his theory as one that's perfect, by any means. But, here is why I find Descartes as a fundamental building block to understanding how our solar system actually works as a physical machine: using absolutely nothing but the necessary axiom that the solar system is a physical machine, and must operate through mechanics just like any other object in our world, he was able to correctly predict the existence of several features throughout the solar system that were considered non-existent for centuries after - mostly because Newton disproved them in The Principia. Reading through this basic text (less than 75pgs), he correctly asserts a very simplistic, albeit slightly hypothesis about (a) the existence of plasma (b) the existence of the heliosphere as the plasmatic medium between the planets, and the vortical nature of the heliospheric current sheet (c) the Sun as a sphere of plasma, directly interacting with said medium and the planets and (d) the development of magnetospheres around the planets. All of this, ~300 years before any had an understanding of what plasma actually was.

Now, is his theory entirely correct? No, it can't possibly be. Just like Newton and the rest of the scientific world, in the 1660's people *barely* understood magnetism and electricity. Plasma physics wasn't even a thing of the imagination. The hydrodynamic analogies made by Descartes, and likewise, the hydrodynamic arguments made against his ideas by Newton, are going to be inherently flawed. And neither one of them had any idea about wireless/resonant electromagnetic action through plasmatic mediums, or longitudinal electric effects, or magnetohydrodynamics.

For me, Descartes is simply the man to begin with - the instrumental figure to teach the lesson that *there is no difference* between how a clock works, and how the solar system works. They're both physical systems, operating in a physical universe, dictated by the laws of mechanics. And for almost three centuries, we had *extremely* little knowledge about the actual mechanisms that exist in our solar system. Every model developed had to be structured exclusively around the planets, and the Sun. Every interaction between them was simply the result of a mutual interaction between these two parties, because, as Newton said, "space was a vacuum." But space *is not a vacuum.* It's an ocean of plasma, contained within a vacuum chamber, with rays of positive current streaming in from every other star and galaxy in space, flowing right down to the Sun's poles. That ocean of plasma is swirling around in the chamber like a vortex, with eddies and currents flowing through it at different scales and in different places constantly. And yet, we're still assuming that the planets revolve around the Sun through no mechanism at all, just "gravity" doing the work.

Descartes' ideas are a beginning, not an answer. But it's the beginning because it asks the right question: how does this *machine* work? What are its components? What are the parts at work, and how do they interact to make the planets dance? Action at a distance, or worse, action through metaphysical constructions, just don't cut it.

Thank you for the encouragement! I'll continue to put all of my notes up here in this forum for free.

[querious]

BecomingTesla,
What are your thoughts on the controversy concerning Newton's "Bucket Experiment"?