Kragh H. Varying Gravity: Dirac's Legacy in Cosmology and Geophysics

Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 2016. — 200 p. — ISBN: 3319243772.The main focus of this book is on the interconnection of two unorthodox scientific ideas, the varying-gravity hypothesis and the expanding-earth hypothesis. As such, it provides a fascinating insight into a nearly forgotten chapter in both the history of cosmology and the history of the earth sciences.
The hypothesis that the force of gravity decreases over cosmic time was first proposed by Paul Dirac in 1937. In this book the author examines in detail the historical development of Dirac’s hypothesis and its consequences for the structure and history of the earth, the most important of which was that the earth must have been smaller in the past.Introductory Issues
The Heavens and the Earth
Cosmology, Cosmogony, and Geology
Halm’s Expanding Earth
Varying Gravity
Big G: The Gravitational Constant
Dirac and the Magic of Large Numbers
Jordan’s Cosmological System
“A Landmark in Human Thought”
Paleoclimatology Enters Cosmology
Offspring of Scalar–Tensor Gravitation Theory
A Machian Approach to Fundamental Physics
The Expanding Earth
Drifting Continents and the Expansion Alternative
Pascual Jordan: Geophysicist?
Dicke and the Earth Sciences
Egyed and the New Expansion Theory
Sympathizers of Expansionism
Discussions Pro et contra
After Plate Tectonics
Steady-State Cosmology and the Earth
New Creation Cosmologies
Testing Varying Gravity
Degeneration
Two Revolutions in Science
Historiographical and Other Perspectives