On 09/22/2012 02:57 PM, Jouni Valkonen wrote:
There are two kinds of ethers.
Better said, those are two notions of the ether, that are of historical
value and of customary use.
When I say ether I refer to the also customary notion of 'light carrying
medium', but in general terms, that is, without any association (yet)
with particular models or theories for it. Because that's what we're
trying to arrive at. To a notion of an ether that does not contradict
accepted and verified experimental results.
First: the classical ether is extremely stiff medium where light waves
are propagating, similarly like sound waves are propagating in a
water. It must be hugely stiff, because the speed of light is depended
on the stiffness and the speed of light is quite remarkable.
That version clearly was disproved, as you said.
As you can see, it's a strongly mechanical version of the ether, related
to the behaviour of longitudinal waves propagating in an stiff medium,
and relating velocity of propagation with the stiffness of said medium.
There is slight problem that if ether as stiff that it allows the
speed for light to be 300 Mm/s, then how on Earth there can be
inertial movement around the sun! And if ether does not interact with
regular matter, then how come we can see the light that is pressure
waves propagating through ether?
Luckily this classical ether was refuted by Einstein and his (with
little help from Planck) invention of quantum theory that pointed out
that actually photons are quantum particles, not waves. And as they
are particles, no ether as medium for light waves is required.
That is debatable. 'Particles' is a human construct, closely related to
the notions of 'thing', and 'object', which are, in turn, a result of
our everyday experience in the world, and also, to an extent of no minor
importance, of our mental framework when relating and interacting with
said world. In reality, there may very well be no particles at all. And
I suspect that is the case, that is, that the Universe is not monadic,
in the sense that its "building blocks" are not essentially irreducible,
but, much to the contrary, are just manifestations or irregularities in
a substrate that is essentially a continuum.
Or, at least, that that may very well be the case, that is, that that
option is not excluded /per se/. It's equally mind boggling to think in
terms of a continuum, than to think that there's a point of
irreducibility. What's that irreducible particle's substance? What's
made of? What's inside it? etc.
Second: The other kind of Ether is Newton's fixed background or
preferred frame of reference. Einstein developed this idea even
further when he showed with general relativity that actually ether is
not fixed, but the gravity can modify the geometry of absolute frame
of reference.
Einstein himself called correctly his general relativity as ether
theory as it is based on a idea of an absolute frame of reference.
In some other instances I have promoted Lorentz's theory of
relativity. That is similar ether based kinematic theory as general
relativity is for accelerating frame of references. That is, the
kinematic motion in Lorentz's theory of relativity is
always measured in respect of ether and if we choose Earth's gravity
field as preferred frame of reference, then this
interpretation agrees with every empirical observations so far.
Although Lorentz's theory of relativity is ether theory, it has not
been disproved and it happily agrees with M&M experiment and all the
time dilation observations. Therefore this latter kind of ether, where
ether or preferred frame of reference is Earth's gravity field, is not
refuted.
Right. Better, then.
Now you should carefully reflect on what *physical* (as "opposed" to
mathematical, or geometrical) properties that non-refuted Lorentzian
ether must have, in order to accommodate both, the propagation of light
waves, and also, their particular modes of propagation, that is, those
that are known to be such according to Michelson & Morley type
experiments, and which are modeled mathematically and geometrically by
the diverse branches or variants of a number of (valid) Relativity theories.
When doing that, (which is by no means easy), you'll be gaining a
physical interpretation of Relativity, in the line of the venerable and
old science of Physics. That interpretation will necessarily be
non-mechanical, that is, the used and abused analogy of propagation of
waves in a more or less stiff medium, will not be applicable to it. As
you may know, something can very well be physical and non-mechanical at
the same time. Or, conversely: the fact that something is
non-mechanical, does not prove or implies then, that it does not exist.
