Any theories supporting the presence of Aether ?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by H2O, Nov 26, 2015.

  1. H2O Registered Member

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    Several scientsists like Newton, Einstein, Tesla and Maxwell supported the presence of an Aether in different theories.

    Most were connected to the light and gravitational forces needing a medium to travel through. Apart from that are there any theories supporting the presence of aether ?

    Mendelive also claimed there is an element called aether in the periodic table that is even lighter than hydrogen. (It's different than the aether above, but same properties )

    You think it's real ? Any theories ?
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Aether theories are nowadays the exclusive preserve of cranks. The choice is yours...........

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  5. H2O Registered Member

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    I just discovered that all these scientists supported this theory, so I just wanted to know

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  7. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but Tesla was half-mad and the rest lived a century or more ago. Science does not stand still.

    P.S. Einstein's view of aether developed along with his ides and eventually became no more than what we are now in the habit of calling spacetime.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
  8. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Here is my theory: God is made of aether.
     
  9. H2O Registered Member

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    Can you elaborate more on the following einstein quote ?

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    e may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense.
     
  10. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    That's consistent what I've just told you: that the idea of the aether degenerated, as the theories of relativity progressed, into no more than what we call spacetime.
     
  11. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    There are ether theories which are compatible with modern physics too.

    If you are a laymen, you have to be, of course, very careful - most of what is named "ether theory" today is crank nonsense. A protection against such crank science is to ask if it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But there are ether theories which have been published, and are viable as physical theories, no longer about electromagnetism alone (as the old ether theories) but about gravity as well as the other particles and fields of modern particle physics. In particular, there is Jacobson with his Einstein aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_aether_theory

    I'm also a proponent of ether theory, and my ether theories have been published in peer-reviewed journals too. You can take a look at a popular presentation at http://ilja-schmelzer.de/
     
  12. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    There is a "necessary and sufficient" idea embedded in both mathematics and physics.

    That the idea of an aether was not necessary is commemorated in the null results of dozens of interferometry and other tests in a universe comprised of energy events in an inertialess relativistic space that is really just light travel time in every rotational direction in which energy may propagate, but there really was no need to go so far.

    The Earth is not an inertial reference frame by any stretch of even a twisted imagination. It has Corriolis acceleration dependent on both latitude and the 1 day period of rotation. The tides of the moon and the Sun produce another mode of acceleration, as does mass concentrations in the crust and mantle of the Earh itself, not to mention similar effects with the moon and the Sun's coronal mass ejections. The Milky Way galaxy rotates about a central point and is currently falling into the Andromeda galaxy that is twice its size. Finally, there is the relativistic motion of all of the local galaxies and the black holes at their centers from similar ones at cosmological distances, which now appears also to be accelerating from each other at a speed and a bearing we could only guess at. Chasing down these motions to a resultant aggregate velocity vector or geometry in relativistic space is the equivalent of chasing an absolute space or an absolute time or geometrically decomposing its motions with respect to an aether. There isn't one, nor should anyone expect there to be. The speed of light is invariant and + /- c added together relativistically determines what "at rest" means for every and any state of motion or frame of reference for every particle of bound or beam of unbound energy in a universe comprised of energy transfer events.

    On the other end of the scale of size, we have the quantum foam of virtual energy popping in and out of existence. And we have the Higgs field, an excitation of which, the Higgs boson, is the only thing in the known universe that is even capable of imparting inertial mass to electrons, electroweak bosons, quarks and their antiparticles. Neutrinos too. All three flavors.

    The quantum foam needs no inertia. An aether is not necessary in order to describe it completely based only on relative ENERGY EXCHANGE EVENTS. There is no requirement for anything in this universe to be simultaneous nor to follow any eccentric rules with respect to either rotational nor linear inertia.

    JUST AS THERE IS NO GOOD REASON to teach the mathematics of complex numbers where ordinary counting numbers would suffice, nor higher dimensions of afflicted geometry or topology where a simpler description would suffice, much less try and combine solid geometries at rest with relativistic ones in periodic or linear motion with respect to each other. Not necessary wherever a simpler description would be sufficient. Treating it as though it were otherwise is the mathematical equivalent of fiction. Occasionally, a gem like e^(i*pi) will turn up, but this relation really has little to do with the physical universe in which each hand for telling time in an old analog clock is in a different reference frame and observers riding them can't even agree on EXACTLY how long it takes one of the hands to complete a single revolution.

    Like the analog clock, the entire relativity twin paradox works in circular paths in this universe, on any scale. Nothing moves anywhere in a universe comprised of energy transfer events without interacting with the Higgs field. Nothing moves without time dilation that is different with respect to all other bound or unbound energy in the universe. If simultanaeity of any kind exists in this universe, either it is related to quantum entanglement, or it doesn't occur. The Higgs field is entangled everywhere, but it is not an aether. It is a candidate for the origin and the arrow of time.

    Time dilation is different in proximity to even the slightest amount of bound or unbound energy, on any scale.

    The Higgs mechanism is the only means for imparting inertia to bound or unbound energy in this universe.

    Go ahead, make a aether out of that, if you are foolhardy enough to try. It isn't necessary, or sufficient to a complete description of virtually everything, but don't let that stop you from trying.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
  13. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    [deleted - meh, already taken care of]
     
  14. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Though your latest attempt was rejected, I gather.
     
  15. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    To quote the rejection:
    With such criteria - enthusiastic support from all reviewers - an ether paper has, of course, not even a theoretical chance. (And, in reality, this almost never happens, so, sorry, I don't really believe.) Even if the article receives a positive review of the author of an article which has been criticized in the article, which would be, without the e-word, sufficient to publication. See http://ilja-schmelzer.de/papers/river.php
     
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  16. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    If the ether is necessary or not depends on what you want. If you are comfortable with a field theory which does not attach any physical meaning to the fields, and is unable to explain why we have these fields but not others, then you may not need an ether. If you want an explanation, why we have, in the Standard Model of Particle Physics, the particles and fields we observe, I know of no published alternative which has given better results.
     
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  17. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    The problem is that those "results" are philosophical/emotional in nature, not scientific. The ether is not "necessary" to describe/explain observations it is only "necessary" to deal with some peoples' emotional discomfort with a universe that lacks ethers.
     
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  18. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    No, the problem is not at all emotional discomfort.

    To explain why the SM is what it is, with all its strange regularities, is a question of explanatory power. Which is, essentially, the same as predictive power, except that it is about postdiction. A theory which high explanatory power allows to "pre"dict things which are already known, namely, the number of fermions of the SM, their charges, the forces (the gauge group of the SM). Why are there three generations, why three colors, why do fermions appear only in electroweak pairs, and all this.

    And this is what my ether theory explains, using a quite simple model. See http://ilja-schmelzer.de/matter/ for details.

    This is something the competitors want to be able to do too:
    This is from a string theoretician, http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.0788v3 He ignores, of course, my theory, with high probability simply because he does not know it.
     
  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Bosons may occupy the same physical "space" at the same time. This being the case, I see no reason to restrict an aether (or anything else in a quantum field) to a "lattice" in any model of gauge physics. A predisposition to Cartesian coordinates where they seem inappropriate to a description of nature seems to be a very strong tendency in theoretical physics, which really makes no sense. Everything in the universe seems to like the shape of a sphere, and it is very clear where that shape derives as well. Cartesian lattices really need not apply for this job.

    Tom Kibble, a co author of the Higgs paper with Peter Higgs, and Englert, wrote an award winning description of the Higgs mechanism analogous to a celebrity or a rumor of a celebrity crossing a crowded room full of media people. Although it does not exactly render the reality of bosons, the description is very far from being a lattice, other than the "room" in which energy transfer events and inertia interact. The room is not essential to Kibble's model either.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
  20. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Science/cosmology is also about speculative physics. We even have papers on Time travel and Tachyons.
    Nothing at all wrong with that, as of course that's how science progresses, as long as one understands that they all [including the ether] are purely speculative at this stage.
     
  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    More conspiracies? Wow! It's a wonder you are able to get out of bed in the morning with all these scientific and political conspiracies that abound.

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