Why is Ether Physics Frowned Upon?

JG: Lorentz was correct.

 

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Actually, you guys, aether takes on the form of a quantum aether; so aether is actually needed, just not in the same form that the Michelson-Morley experiement searched for. The quantum aether describes matter spontaneously bubbling from the vacuum.

 

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The aether implies a preferred rest frame. The "quantum aether" (and I wouldn't call it that) doesn't do that.

 

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Is that when you consider the aether a light bearing medium or when you consider it a gravity bearing medium?

 

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Hey Ben. Thx for the awesome quote. Can you provide a reference for that please?

 

I would like that as well.

 

Yeah I don't know.

Somehow I think at least one of you is missing the point of the quote, though.

 

I agree with the quote. I just want a citation and confirmation Einstein actually said it.

 

Except we know by observation that the speed of light has been constant for more than 10 billion years (or so close to constant it's beyond our ability to measure). The speed of light is more than just something which appears in relativity (and thus cosmology), it permeates every facet of modern physics. When you work out things which in any way rely on something to do with field theory, electromagnetism or relativity there's factors of c knocking around your equations. The strength of electromagnetic bonds is a function of c. The strength of the force holding the nucleus of atoms together is a function of c. The strength and behaviour of gravity is a function of c.

There's a great many phenomena which are sensitive to small changes in various parameters in physics. Changing the speed of light by say 10% would radically alter the stability of nuclei and atoms. It would alter the rate and products of nuclear fusion in stars, meaning they'd be different in shape and size and colour to what they are at the moment. Gravitational fields would be altered, maybe excluding stable orbits, so galaxies and solar systems don't form. All of these things are dependent on various constants like G, c, \(\hbar\), k etc etc being very close to their current values and not varying outside those narrow ranges.

Since we do see distance galaxies looking much like close ones, with stars orbitting the galaxies' centre, supernova having the same kind of spectrum we see in nearby galaxies and the stars we observe have the same kind of emission spectra our galaxy's stars have. So experiment tells us that if c is a dynamical quantity, its dynamics are very very slow and over a very very small range. So it would seem that a varying speed of light is not simpler than relativity because you have to explain why the speed of light is dynamical yet seems to remain in just the right range so as to allow the universe we see. By allowing it to vary you have given yourself a fine tuning problem of a serious kind.

 

Q: Why is Ether Physics Frowned Upon?

A: Because of some award winning idiot (calling himself Zephir) made a complete mockery of it (deservedly so).

 

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I use to believe in ether physics but sadly after awhile I realized it was just nonsense. You see there are NO applications as far as I know that demonstrate it's existence. One would expect an anti-gravity generator, a neat device in itself, or just something to show although it's not detectable ether exists. NONE EXIST.

Ether is not real, you know this but wish it was, I do have my doubts about SR though. This concept is very simplified and I do not think it's right. Well it isn't simple, but I doubt it's right :L shrugs

 

electrafixtion,

I really don't know. I've been at sciforums for several years now, and I'm surprised how many highly intelligent individuals can believe that an observer can contract space and dilate time in his/her entire frame of reference (which by the way is the entire universe), by simply moving. I always thought that energy was required to change the properties of any object, but obliviously no energy is required to change the properties of space-time. What's even more boggling is that an observer, by moving, can somehow change the properties of space-time a million miles away. That's kind of cool isn't it? The enormous gravitational field of a black hole can only curve space-time in its section of the galaxy, but I can contract space and dilate time in the Andromeda galaxy by simply moving. I must be a god!!

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Seriously, the scientific community was to eager to accepts Einstein's relativity because, I believe, that they look at Einstein as being some kind of god. I guess there's religion in everything, even science.

I personally believe that the space, or space-time, or ether, or whatever you want to call it, is the medium that light travels through, but that it does not determine the speed of the light. I believe that the speed of light is not constant for all observers, but is only equal to c for an observer that is stationary in a gravitational field. In other words, I believe that the speed of light would change for an observer moving through a gravitational field, because the speed of light is only equal to c relative to the gravitational field that light is moving through at any given moment.

To go one step further, I would suggest that the gravitational field of a photon is not uniform like regular matter, but may be a dipole. This causes the photon to be accelerated when it is placed in an external gravitational field until it reaches the speed of c in that field, because c is the speed of the gravitational interaction.

Therefore, I believe the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment do not prove that the speed of light is constant for all inertial observers, but instead may prove that the speed of light was only equal to c in the Michelson-Morley device because the device was stationary in the Earth's gravitational field. I believe if you moved the device relative to the Earth's gravitational field, the speed of light in the device would change by the same amount.

 

You point out some interesting relationships. Mass and gravity are two sides of the same coin. If we discuss gravity from the reference frame of the mass from which the gravity emanates, then because gravity has an infinite reach, it passes through all reference frames, just like light. If there is an aether across which gravity is transmitted, it would seem to make sense that light traverses the same medium.

Gravity and light traveling at the same speed across the aether seems to suggest that their speed is aether dependent. That is why I was entertaining the idea that the force of quantum action and the resulting expansion of energy quanta across the aether at the speed of light would provide the mechanism for both light and gravity to travel. If the spherical quantum energy waves travel at the speed of light then both gravity and light could utilize the same aether medium.

If this were true, then the speed of gravity would be frame dependent just like the speed of light.

And the aether would consist of the energy waves emitted by mass and so the aether would be dragged along with mass instead of mass moving through the aether, thus explaining why it is not detected by interferometry.

 

I believe the exact quote is found in one of William Lyne's books but I am not sure. I couldn't find it.

These are interesting sources for the premise of the quote. I am not waving the flag of validation because I am not qualified to do so, but these are interesting links nonetheless.

http://www.mu6.com/einstein.html

http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V08NO3PDF/V08N3GRF.PDF

http://www.16pi2.com/Einstein_Aether.htm

According to the general theory of relativity space without ether 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. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of matter, as consisting of parts ('particles') which may be tracked through time.
(Albert Einstein, 1928, Leiden Lecture)

 

Thx man I really appreciate it.

"With regards to the general theory of relativity, space cannot be imagined without ether."

Love that quote. In other words, those who deny ether also deny relativity.

Check this out: Fluid Dynamic (Ether) Sink Gravity

 

Just because Einstein developed GR initially doesn't mean all he says is correct. There have been many physicists who have understood GR better than him. Einstein also did work in quantum mechanics but he didn't agree with it's fundamentally probabilistic nature, though we know him to be wrong. Relativity has been developed a great deal since Einstein's day. The golden age of GR was in the 60s, after his death.

It's funny how you will cling to that quote by a mainstream physicist because he has said something you agree with but when it comes to the many thousands of papers physicists publish in things like geology (ie the areas relevant to your claim of expanding planets and moons) you ignore them all. Cherry picking what you cling to.

Considering you don't know even high school physics, you certainly have no clue of whether relativity would be consistent or possible with or without an aether. You don't know the first thing about it other than what you can gleam from Wikipedia and pop science magazines.

 

This is a bold statement. When you say we know him to be wrong about the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics are you saying that there is proof. Give us a link to the proof and don't use wiki or some pop science mag.

 

Look up the Bell inequalities in whatever quantum physics textbook you happen to have. Not that I think you have one.

 

Funny. So Bell's theorem is proof. What in your mind constitutes proof of Bell's theorem?