Corpuscular Theory

Abstract

G. L. LE SAGE, of Geneva, devoted the best part of his life to a theory of the mechanism of gravity. It appeared in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy in 1782. The fullest account of his theory was published by Pierre Prevost, as editor, in 1818 (“Deux traités de physique méchanique”). The general idea of the theory is that ultramundane corpuscles are flying through space in all directions with great velocity; that they collide with the atoms of mundane matter; and that in consequence they issue from the sun or a planet with less velocity than that with which they entered it. Thus the atoms of the moon are bombarded by corpuscles from all directions equally, except that those coming from the earth have a smaller velocity and, in consequence, the moon is driven towards the earth by the force called gravitation.