The isotropic-to-nematic transition in an athermal solution of long rigid rods subject to a gravitational (or centrifugal) field is theoretically considered in the Onsager approximation. The new feature emerging in the presence of gravity is a concentration gradient that coupled with the nematic ordering. For rodlike molecules this effect becomes noticeable at centrifugal acceleration g approxi...

Traditional Newtonian mechanics treats gravity as one of the forces contributing to the acceleration of a body in motion. Newtonian natural motion is defined relative to an abstract inertial space where gravity is non-existent and free body velocity motion remains constant unless modified by applied force. With this interpretation, gravitational force is an embedded characteristic whose effect ...

Gravitational Thomas Precession ( GTP ) is the name given to the Thomas Precession when the acceleration is caused by a gravitational force field. In continuation of our discussion on the idea of a GTP, in this note by way of considering the motion of a planet around the Sun, the GTP is shown to be a gravitomagnetic effect that a planet might experience while moving through a gravitational fiel...

A Darboux-transformed surface gravitational acceleration of the constant gravitational acceleration for a body endowed with an atmospheric layer is shown to turn the atmospheric free fall with quadratic resistance in the opposite motion, i.e., a free rising. Although the atmosphere of such a body may look completely normal, it is the time dependence of its gravitational field that produces this...

The problem of hyperbolic incoming orbits for single-apparition comets is investigated. In this context the effect of non-gravitational acceleration on cometary dynamics was analyzed for the sample of 33 “hyperbolic” comets. The orbital elements of each cometary orbit were determined by the least squares procedure based on positional observations. These osculating orbital elements serve as a ba...

It is shown that the same phenomenological Newtonian model recently proposed by the author to explain the cosmological evolution of the fine structure constant suggests furthermore an explanation of the unmodelled acceleration aP ≃ 8.5 × 10 −10 m/s of the Pioneer 10/11 spaceships reported by Anderson et al in 1998. In the view presented here, it is argued that the permittivity and permeability ...