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Gravitation and Thermodynamics

Abstract

ATTENTION has been given in NATURE to various deductions from the results of Dr. P. E. Shaw's experiments on The Newtonian Constant of Gravitation as affected by Temperature (Phil. Trans., A, 544, 1916). So far as the present writer is aware, attention has not been directed to the suggestive remarks of the late Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, to be found in his Helmholtz memorial lecture (Transactions Chemical Society, 1896, pp. 889–95). In the course of his reference to Helmholtz's contribution to the theory of vortex motion, Fitzgerald remarks:β€”It is difficult to weigh hot bodies accurately, and, in consequence, there does not seem to be any conclusive proof that the weight of a body does not change with its temperature. If it does not do so by a measurable amount, the simple vortex ring theory of matter can hardly be true.

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THOMAS, J. Gravitation and Thermodynamics . Nature 99, 405 (1917). https://doi.org/10.1038/099405b0

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