George Gabriel Stokes to Faraday   8 June 1860

14 Bellvue Terrace, Southsea | Portsmouth 8 June 1860

My dear Faraday,

I found your paper at the R.S. and took it here to read¹.

I am nearly sure you asked me to read it and give you my opinion about it. I will answer on that supposition.

I own my own opinion is against sending it in for the Transactions. It might have done as coming in incidentally in the body of a paper containing positive results but it seems to me it would scarcely do for an independent communication to the Transactions, a communication I mean made at one time though forming part of a train of experimental enquiry. If such negative results had the effect of correcting a commonly entertained expectation, or if the author’s previous labours had led those who had followed them to regard a positive result as probable, or even not unlikely, the case might be different. But to my mind the antecedent probability of a positive result was too slender to justify the publication, in such a solemn manner as in the Transactions, of a negative result.

I should not myself expect a change in the temperature or electric state of a body even if one could transfer it to a place where gravity was only half what it is at the surface of the Earth; but even if a change were to be effected under these circumstances one could hardly expect to render it sensible in merely passing from the bottom to the top of a tower. To my mind the antecedent probability of a positive result is the product of two (to my mind small) fractions expressing the separate probabilities.

I write on the supposition that the change to be expected was one due to a change in the gravitating relations of the experimental mass - to a change for example from a place of strong to a place of weaker gravity - and not merely to a motion with or in opposition to the force of gravity: Such I take to be your view.#

A sentence at the top of p.2 will require modification. “The so called variation of gravitating force by change of distance, can only be taken into account in either astronomical or cosmical phenomena: neither of which can be made the subject of experiment.” This statement is too absolute because the change is taken into account in Cavendish’s² experiment³.

I don’t think there would be any objection to the paper’s appearing in the Proceedings. I should be glad if you would take the opinion of some one else.

I remain here till Tuesday⁴ when I go to Town.

Yours very truly | G.G. Stokes

# or rather that you would think such a change, if it could be effected, more likely to yield a positive result.