Manchester Aleinoirs, Vol. liv. (1909), No. 1. 



I. On a new Binary Progression of the Planetary 

 Distances, and on the Mutability of the Solar 

 System. 



By Henry Wilde, D.Sc, D.C.L, F.R.S. 



Received and read October Jth, igog. 



1. In the paper which I read before the Society in 

 March last " On the Moving Force of Terrestrial and 

 Celestial Bodies in relation to the Attraction of Gravita- 

 tion,"* it was demonstrated that the moving force of 

 celestial bodies is as the square of the velocity, in 

 accordance with the experimental results obtained with 

 moving bodies at the surface of the terrestrial globe. I 

 further announced and demonstrated the new dynamical 

 law that the moving force of celestial bodies is inversely 

 proportional to the square of the distance, and correlatively 

 equal to the static attraction of gravitation. For if the 

 moving force were simply as the velocity, the attraction 

 of gravitation would require to be in the like proportion, 

 otherwise planetary bodies would either fall upon the 

 central body, or be projected into outer space. But it 

 has been demonstrated that the moving force and the 

 attraction of gravitation are alike inversely proportional 

 to the square of the distance to maintain and retain 

 celestial bodies in their orbits during their revolutions 

 round their primaries. 



2. As some confusion of thought has arisen in the use 

 of the term " gravitating force " by various writers, it 

 cannot be too clearly stated that moving force and the static 



*Matichester Memoirs, vol. 53, 19C9, Phil. Mag., (6), vol. 18, p. 523, 

 1909. 



October 2§th, igog. 



