Word.ws English Dictionary

vortex theory

vortex theory noun: 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.

Noun

vortex theory (uncountable)

  1. (historical) 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.
    • 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...1953, Aram Vartanian, Diderot and Descartes: A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment, pages 83–84
    • Still, it cannot be denied that the fortunes of vortex theory eclipsed radically with the publication of Newton’s Principia.2000, Stephen Gaukroger, “The foundational role of hydrostatics and statics in Descartes’ natural philosophy”, in Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster, John Sutton, editors, Descartes’ Natural...
  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.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see vortex, theory.

Questions about vortex theory

What does vortex theory mean?
Vortex theory means 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.
What part of speech is vortex theory?
Vortex theory is a noun.

Words near vortex theory in the dictionary

  1. vortex mixer
  2. vortex mixers
  3. vortex ring
  4. vortex rings
  5. vortex shedding
  6. vortex theory
  7. vortex tube
  8. vortex tubes
  9. vortexation
  10. vortexations
  11. vortexed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vortex theory (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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