V.3 No 1

21

Chapter 1. Hypotheses of the Earth origin

R. Descartes (Cartesy, 1596- 1650) [13, 14] "developed a new for the science idea of natural evolution of the Solar system; he thought the vortex motion of its particles to be the main form of cosmic matter motion that causes the world structure and the celestial bodies origin" [2, p. 112- 113]. In the Descartes' cosmogony, the celestial bodies originated as the vortexes of matter rotating around their axes and around some centre. "The particles produced in this way so many vortexes as many luminaries exist now" [14, part 3, item 46, p. 393] (see Fig. 1.2). Supposedly, in the old days the Earth was a luminary on whose surface later produced the condensations (vortexes) of denser matter similar to the spots observed on the Sun; the accumulation of condensations-vortexes has caused the suppression of the own vortex of the Earth and turning it into the planet - a body which lost its own vortex and after this took its stable orbit around the Sun. After Descartes, the space is empty nowhere, the matter is structured and has not a finite, indivisible further structure [14, part 4].

Fig. 1.2. The structure of Universe by Descartes [14, part 3, item 46, p. 392, Fig. 8].

However all these constructions concern, as we see, more the geometry than physics per se. I. Newton (1643- 1727) first studied just the physical characteristics of the objects of nature. Descartes has formulated the laws of motion at the descriptive level - Newton [15] enveloped them in formulas. He has discovered in their today appearance the law of inertia, the law of proportional force and acceleration, the law of equal action and counter-action, "from which many corollaries forming the underpinning of classical mechanics and classical physics are inferred. In his 'Principia' he substantiated the concept of absolute motion related not to the material bodies but to the empty (absolute) space and absolute time… From the bodies mutual attraction … he has derived the laws of planets motion established by Kepler. The gravity law not only accomplished the heliocentric representation of the Sun system, it gave the scientific basis to explain many processes occurring in the universe, in that number physical and chemical processes, and became the basis of the unified physical pattern of the world" [2, p. 326- 327]. In this way there appear the grounds for the basically other approach to all natural sciences, for the exact, not only descriptive statement of new conceptions. Just this leads to the scientific 'burst' which started in the end of 17th and went on all the 18th century.

Most of before-Newtonian works, and Newtonian work too, did not touch the cause of celestial bodies origin, they thought some primary driver to be the cause of their evolution and motion. The after-Newton hypotheses already mostly scientifically explained the mechanism and, as far as possible, the causes (forces) responsible for the celestial bodies origin. This series of hypotheses is conventionally divided into the nebular (describing the planet system origin from the primary nebula) and catastrophic (thinking the primary cause in some cosmic catastrophe). However from the further analysis we will see them being mostly so much combined that cannot be strongly related to one of these divisions.