Meaning of vortex theory | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An obsolete scientific theory, chiefly developed by René Descartes, which attempted to explain celestial mechanics and the phenomena now described as gravitation by positing a system of fluid vortices governed by centrifugal forces and extending outwards from the sun.
   historical, uncountable
2. The vortex theory of the atom: a theory by Lord Kelvin, to explain why there are relatively few types of atom, but a huge number of each type.
   uncountable
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see vortex, theory.
   uncountable

Examples

“Roger Cotes, in a preface to the first English edition of the Principia in 1729, argued that vortex-theory, with its notion of the plenum and its ambition to explain⟳ natural effects on exclusively physical grounds, made no allowance for, and could not be fitted into, a teleological scheme of any kind.”

“Still, it cannot be denied that the fortunes of vortex theory eclipsed radically with the publication of Newton’s Principia.”

“Christiaan Huygens came to doubt⟳ the vortex theory “which formerly appeared very likely” to him.”

CEFR level