Clifford’s attempt to test his gravitation hypothesis

Authors

  • S. Galindo Departamento de Física, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Km. 36.5 Carretera México-Toluca 52045, México.
  • Jorge L. Cervantes-Cota Departamento de Física, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Km. 36.5 Carretera México-Toluca 52045, México.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31349/RevMexFisE.64.162

Keywords:

W.K. Clifford, test of gravitational theories, history of gravitation, history of general relativity.

Abstract

Almost half a century before Einstein expounded his general theory of relativity, the English mathematicianWilliam Kingdon Clifford argued that space might not be Euclidean and proposed that matter is nothing but a small distortion in that spatial curvature. He further proposed that matter in motion is not more than the simple variation in space of this distortion. In this work, we conjecture that Clifford went further than his aforementioned proposals, as he tried to show that matter effectively curves space. For this purpose he made an unsuccessful observation on the change of the plane of polarization of the skylight during the solar eclipse of December 22, 1870 in Sicily.

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Published

2018-06-11

How to Cite

[1]
S. Galindo and J. L. Cervantes-Cota, “Clifford’s attempt to test his gravitation hypothesis”, Rev. Mex. Fis. E, vol. 64, no. 2 Jul-Dec, pp. 162–168, Jun. 2018.

Issue

Vol. 64 No. 2 Jul-Dec (2018): Revista Mexicana de Física E

Section

03 History of Physics

License

Authors retain copyright and grant the Revista Mexicana de Física E right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.