Of all the strands of his work, Velikovsky published least on his belief that electromagnetism plays a role in orbital mechanics. Although he appears to have retreated from the propositions in his 1946 monograph Cosmos without Gravitation, no such retreat is apparent in Stargazers and Gravediggers.Velikovsky, Immanuel 1983. Stargazers and Gravediggers. William Morrow and Co. . Footnote, p. 165, indicates no retreat and states "Gravitation is an electromagnetic phenomenon." Cosmos without Gravitation, which Velikovsky placed in university libraries and sent to scientists, is a probable catalyst for the hostile response of astronomers and physicists to his later claims about astronomy.Bauer, Henry H. 1984. Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy. University of Illinois Press. . p. 233. However, other Velikovskian enthusiasts such as Ralph Juergens (dec.), Earl Milton (dec.), Wal Thornhill, and Donald E. Scott have claimed that stars are powered not by internal nuclear fusion, but by galactic-scale electrical discharge currents. Such ideas do not find support in the conventional literature and are rejected as pseudoscience by the scientific community.Ellenberger, C. Leroy 1985. sec. "Electric Stars" in "Still Facing Many Problems (Part II)", Kronos X (3), pp. 15–23.Thompson, Tim 2001. "On the 'Electric Sun' Hypothesis". Thompson is a physicist retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.Bridgman, W. T. 2008. "The Electric Sky, Short-Circuited" . Bridgman is an astrophysicist at NASA-Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
