The rise and fall of the "Fifth Force"

by Allan Franklin

"An article in the January 8, 1986 issue of The New York Times dramatically announced, "Hints of Fifth Force in Nature Challenge Galileo's Findings." Just four years later, many of those who had worked on the concept concluded that "the Fifth Force is dead.""--BOOK JACKET. "Reading like a detective story, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force discloses the curious history of the quick advance and swift demise of the "Fifth Force" - a proposed modification of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation and one of the most publicized physics hypotheses in recent memory. While discussing the origin and fate of this short-lived concept, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force delivers a fascinating analysis of the ways in which scientific hypotheses in general are promulgated and pursued."--BOOK JACKET.^ "What leads to the formulation of a hypothesis? How and why does a hypothesis become considered worthy of further investigation? These are some of the questions that The Rise and Fall of the Fifth F