Critique of a new theory of gravitation

Abstract Hoyle & Narlikar (1964d) have developed a new theory of gravitation, for which they claim that it is a direct interparticle action theory, that it ‘is equivalent to that of Einstein in the description of macroscopic phenomena, and hence the situation is the same so far as the classical tests of general relativity are concerned’, that the sign of the gravitational constant is correctly determined, and that it has other advantages over Einstein’s theory such as implying the absence of solutions representing an empty universe. In the present paper, it is shown that these claims are largely unsubstantiated.