FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



successful incorporation into gravitational astronomy 

 demands not adaptation merely, but radical reconstruc- 

 tion. 



By some strange spell our modern men of science 

 have apparently succeeded in lulling themselves into the 

 flattering notion that the astronomy they teach is an 

 6 ' exact ? ' science and that all its really fundamental prob- 

 lems have been successfully disposed of. The truth is 

 that not one of these great problems has been even ap- 

 proximately solved. The reason for this deplorable 

 condition clearly lies in the failure of astronomers to 

 have taken into account the greatest dynamical factor in 

 the universe, namely, the mutual attraction between our 

 solar system on the one hand and the rest of the universe 

 on the other. Indeed, this factor, though occasional! y 

 alluded to in works on astronomy, is seemingly shunned 

 as an impediment to astronomical progress ; whereas, as 

 I shall show, it is the one great indispensable agent re- 

 quired for the clearing up of all the myriad problems 

 that concern planetary and stellar motions. Daring as 

 Newton was to the eyes of his own generation in postu- 

 lating gravitation as extending from the earth to the 

 moon and from the sun to Saturn, he was yet not daring 

 enough when he failed to extend the principle of univer- 

 sal gravitation to include the ' ' fixed " stars. Nor have 

 his followers repaired his error of omission. He con- 

 strued our solar system as a universe unto itself utterly 

 independent of and unaffected by the stars in general, 

 the sun as stationary in space, and the orbits of the 

 planets and the satellites as, literally, closed curves. In 

 fine, he and his followers have been all along attempting 

 to crowd into a grotesque fo'-dimensional world, dynami- 

 cally speaking, a real universe posessing three gravita- 

 tional dimensions. 



Before we proceed to this constructive branch of 

 our subject, however, let us first listen to the testimony 

 of the Newtonians themselves as to what they have 

 achieved, and to what extent failed, in their self-ap- 

 pointed task of solving these 



