The “Double Drift” Theory of Star Motions

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Scientific paper

IN the article to which Dr. A. R. Wallace refers, and elsewhere, I have confined myself to attempting to establish the result that the stars distribute themselves into two systems according to their motions, abstaining as far as possible from defining what physical connection is implied by the rather vague word ``system.'' Whether the two systems are comparatively permanent and have come together from different parts of space, or whether they may have been evolved from a single system, is, in the present state of our knowledge, a somewhat speculative question, and it is with some reluctance that I enter upon it Still, without asserting that the hypothesis of two permanent systems is the only possible one, I know at present of no other satisfactory explanation. In the system suggested by Dr. Wallace (in which the stars move about the centre of the universe in ellipses, some forward and some retrograde, with all sorts of eccentricities) the motions would be for our purposes haphazard. Thus the system would form a single and not a double drift; the extremely eccentric orbits form a perfect transition between the direct and retrograde orbits. To account for two drifts, it is not sufficient to show that some stars move forward and some backward; it must be shown that there is a concentration of the motions about two definite velocities (definite in magnitude and direction), and it does not appear to me that the suggested system provides for this. In fact, it is difficult to see how gravitation towards the centre of the universe could separate the motions of the stars into two systems, if they originally formed one system.

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