Charles Geilfuss wrote:
> Is that similar to the "Ether" ala Michaelson/ Morley.
>
The tricky thing is - contemporary physics does "believe" in an "ether",
but won't call it that:
"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of
relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when
his original premise was that no such medium existed ...
The word "ether" has extremely negative connotations in theoretical
physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity.
This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather
nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum.
In the early days of relativity the conviction that light must be waves
of something ran so strong that Einstein was widely dismissed. Even when
Michelson and Morley demonstrated that the earth's orbital motion
through the ether could not be detected, opponents argued that the earth
must be dragging an envelope of ether along with it because relativity
was lunacy and could not possibly be right. The virulence of this
opposition eventually had the scandalous consequence of denying
relativity a Nobel Prize. (Einstein got one anyway, but for other work.) ...
It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was
becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty
vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary
quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle
accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a
piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with
"stuff" that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting
it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the
vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic
ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."
"A Different Universe" pp 120-121
Robert B., Laughlin (Nobel prize in physics, endowed chair at Stanford)
A. Physical Moose
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