Ives, Einstein and the Aether
Herbert Eugene Ives was born in 1882 and died in 1953. (Einstein’s dates are: 1879-1955.) A Philadelphian by birth, Ives did his most important work in New York as Director of Electro-Optics at Bell Labs; overseeing a team of 200 engineers and technicians.
In 1927 Ives was project engineer for the first long distance demonstration of television.
Ives personally held 102 patents on inventions related to: color photography, facsimile, television, phosphorescence, illumination, photometry and photo-electricity. For the military Ives pioneered aerial photography and night vision. Those 3D novelty cards where the image appears to move are another Ives invention.
Ives co-founded, and later presided over, the Optical Society of America. He was Vice President (and Physics Chairman) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); and an elected National Academy of Sciences member.
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In 1937, after freeing himself from practical duties at Bell, Ives fired-off five Theoretical Physics papers. At the time Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity approached orthodoxy. Most American Physics professors, certainly the European imports, championed the relativity of time and denied the existence of aether.
This followed Europe’s lead. In a decision that sparked street protests, the Society of German Scientists, at its 1922 centennial celebrations, censored any criticism of Einstein. A similar closure of debate accompanied Cambridge’s 1923 publication of Mathematical Theory of Relativity by Arthur Eddington (a man more responsible for the Einstein Myth than Einstein himself).
Also in 1937 Ives and his assistant, G. R. Stillwell, experimented on the Doppler Effects of light emitted from rays of hydrogen ions. Ives invented a canal ray tube for this experiment. The duo performed their experiment twice; publishing their results in Nature in 1938 and 1941.
To Ives, a Doppler Effect in light proved the existence of aether. Einsteinians immediately claimed the experiment confirmed their Special Theory of Relativity. Modern textbook accounts of the Ives-Stillwell experiment neglect to mention that its authors both intended to, and claimed to have, refuted Einstein.
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When Ives left AAAS (1939) his retirement speech assailed the Special Theory of Relativity. Over the next decade Einsteinianism achieved orthodoxy. Physics journals blockaded papers critical of relativity. Debates over relativistic and quantum theories vanished from textbooks. Marginalization became blackballing.
Ives was the exception. As the revered founder of the Optical Society of America, he continued to publish in their Journal. Big Physics, however, ignored him.
Ives’ truculence grew the more he investigated Special Theory of Relativity’s history. His swansong: Genesis of the Query: Is there an Ether? (1953) responded to Paul Dirac’s Is there an Aether? (1951) wherein Dirac, albeit amidst obligatory obfuscations, concedes the necessity of an aether. Recounting the views of early 20th century Physics luminaries Ives stresses:
“In the proposals of Fitzgerald, Lorentz, and Larmor for the explanation of the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment there is no suggestion of the non-existence of the ether.”
And:
“The suggestion that the ether is non-existent is not to be found in either Poincare’s or Lorentz’s discussions of the principal of relativity, in fact Lorentz explicitly affirmed his adherence to the ether.”
Poincare’s Principle of Relativity (1904) defined motion relative to an aether. Larmor’s Aether and Matter (1900) and Lorentz’s The Theory of Electrons (1909) both presumed an aether; the latter stating:
“I cannot but regard the ether, which can be the seat of electromagnetic energy and its vibrations, as endowed with a certain degree of substantiality, however different it may be from ordinary matter.”
Ives, like Dirac, dated aether’s banishment to a specific event:
“The idea that there is no ether appears apparently for the first time in the paper by Einstein in 1905 “On the electro-dynamics of moving bodies.”
Einstein not only discarded the aether he also tossed out three-dimensional space and absolute time. For a substitute Einstein offered trendy, kooky Continental academic nostrums borrowed from Minkowski’s space-time theory and Riemannian geometry. The ecstatic adulation Einstein’s scribblings attracted copied contemporaneous crazes over abstract avant garde art.
Not only did Einstein play a marginal role in early relativity theory, his belated contribution deprived prior commentary of physical meaning. To Ives:
“All that the principle of relativity requires is that any specific set of observations of measurements which we may make in the transit of light signals with respect to one body shall yield the same result on any other body in uniform motion with respect to the first when made by instruments partaking of the motion.”
Conversely, measurements of a light signal made from multiple vantage points moving in different directions and speeds will yield disparate, relative results.
To Ives, aether explained electromagnetic phenomena, like visible light, in an intelligible manner. Redacting aether, as the Einsteinians demanded, entailed brain-splitting counter-intuitive distortions of space and time.
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“Electromagnetic spectrum” is a misnomer. Nevertheless, this spectrum goes from microwaves to radio waves to visible light and beyond – operative word: “waves.”
Waves are undulating motions, be they: flaps or ripples; shakes or shivers; quakes or quivers. Waves are lengths of water arching then breaking upon the shore. Waves are regularly recurring disturbances moving through mediums with little or no associated material transport. Wave oscillations convey force not mass. Waves vibrate around fixed locations.
Sound waves propagate via air molecules bumping into their neighbors. Seismic tremors tremble through Earth’s crust.
The study of waves is called Waves Mechanics. All waves are mechanical; including microwaves, radio waves and light.
Let there be no talk of waves without acknowledging the mediums through which they travel. Mediums are the intermediary substances transmitting waves. Mediums carry disturbances from one location to another. Mediums are the ambient material through which forces act upon remote objects. Mediums are the go-betweens, the agencies, conveying the waves.
Through the intervening substance of mediums waves impress human senses. Earth’s atmosphere is the vibrational medium for the sounds ringing in our ears. Earth’s crust is the medium for the tremors rattling our bones. Aether particles are the medium through which light travels to our retinas.
All particles consist of smaller particles. This process of division descends infinitesimally. Aether particles are both the components of nucleons and electrons; and are the constituents of the transparent ocean in which our tangible molecular world floats in suspended animation.
Conventional optical microscopes espy objects one fiftieth a millimeter in width. Electron microscopes allow the study of objects one ten millionth of a millimetre in width; including carbon molecules in crystal formation. Protons are too small to be isolated by electron microscopes. Electrons themselves are one thousandth the size of protons. The size of aether particles is unknown but they are magnitudes smaller than electrons.
The Sun’s diameter is 1.4 million kilometers. The Sun is 75{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} hydrogen atoms i.e. protons each a quadrillionth of a millimeter wide. Star-to-proton is but one small step on the cosmic staircase of scale. Aether particles may be as tiny compared to a proton as a proton is to a star. Scientists won’t isolate aether particles any time soon.
Nonetheless, aether definitely impacts our proton-based realm and wreaks havoc upon electrons. Space-filling aetherial particles transmit electromagnetic waves and propagate gravity.
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Controversies surrounding relativity, back when controversies were tolerated, often turned on “reference frames.” Motion had to be defined with respect to bodies, themselves in motion. Thus, it was claimed, there was neither ultimate frame of reference nor universal clock. Ives and company contended aether provided the absolute reference frame. Bodies moved through, and in relation to, the aether. Time ticked in lockstep universal simultaneity relative to the aether. Such was the pre-Einsteinian view.
Einstein’s writings betray acceptance of aether at least until 1895. Einstein and company later exploited difficulties in detecting aether to deny aether’s existence. In a 1920 stumble Einstein conceded transmission of light was impossible without aether. Then, in trademark obscurantist fashion, he attached to this concession a befuddling passage about the impossibility of measuring ‘space-time’ without aether. He furthered reassured the faithful that his aether lacked any mass.
After relativity became dogma merely whispering “aether” became an excommunicable offense. Algebraic contortions jerry-rigged vacuous ‘space-time’ into a device capable of performing the mechanical role of medium for electromagnetic waves. Pre-Einstein aether was an indispensable premise of electromagnetic theory. Einsteinians demanded ‘four-dimensional’ explanations of such phenomena. From this mystical cauldron arose the phantasmagorical ‘photon.’
The Demise of the Photon – the final chapter about Ives in the magisterial The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers (1979) – relays the lecture Ives gave upon receiving the 1951 Rumford Medal. After discussing wave theory of light, Ives closes by quoting Count Rumford from 1798:
“What is heat? Is there any such thing as an igneous fluid? Is there anything that can with propriety be called a caloric? …it appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything, capable of being excited and communicated in these experiments, except it be MOTION.”
To Ives, contemporary scientists faced a similar question for it was: “extremely difficult if not impossible to retain the idea of light as consisting of discrete photons.” While he recognised the difficulty in explaining all optical phenomena “exclusively in terms of wave transmissions,” he nevertheless predicted: “the photon will go the way of the “caloric” that Rumford demolished.”
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Industrial engineers constitute a Physics culture distinct from Theoretical Physics professors. Science pragmatists like Ives contended that overreliance on abstract mathematical formularies drew Physics away from the real world. (Even when ensconced in developing electronic technology Ives never used Maxwell’s equations.)
Ives and fellow anti-relativists like battery designer Arvid Reuterdaht preferred visual descriptions over algebraic hieroglyphics. They preferred coherent comprehensible physical concepts over the paradoxes and contradictions that Einsteinians rattle off as though they are elementary scientific principles. Ives retained three-dimensional space, universal simultaneity and aether. Alas, after a 50-year struggle the heretics burned out. Ives being among the last of the glowing embers.
Herbert Ives worked with the speed of light. His life’s work straddled the intersection of electricity and light. His inventions demonstrably benefited humanity. He knew what he was talking about.
Ives decried Einstein’s denial of the aether as a regression into “mysticism.” He dismissed Einsteinian thought experiments as “rituals.” He recognised ‘warped four-dimensional space-time’ to be: “childish nonsense.”
Sources
https://alchetron.com/Herbert-E-Ives
Ives, Herbert. Genesis of the Query: Is there an Ether? March 1953. (Speech transcript)
http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/Ives/HerbertIvesGenesis.pdf
Turner, Dean & Hazelett, Richard. The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers; Hope Publishing House, Pasadena, California, 1979.
https://www.science-frontiers.com/sf022/sf022p06.htm
Lalli, Roberto. Anti-Relativity in Action: The Scientific Activity of Herbert E. Ives between 1937 and 1953; Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Volume 43, No 1, February 1, 2013 (pp 41-104).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hsns.2013.43.1.41?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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Ken Hughes
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The Aether is the oscillating field of energy we experience as time. Sit there. static and you will experience the wave of time. You will change at every Planck time, driven into the future by the field. But if you travel fast through the field, the field will red shift from your perspective and time will slow down for you. Travel at the speed of the wave (“c”), and the wave will have red shifted into a straight line from your perspective and you will no longer experience time.
How can light be emitted as a wave form? A star sits in this oscillating field and as each wave cycle progresses, there are more Planck times at the peak of the wave and only one at the trough. It is this continual “compressing” and “expanding” of the sequence of Planck times that creates the wave form of time. But wait, this can only work if there are two waves, out of phase by 180 deg. That way, as many Plank times are occurring at the peak of one wave, there is only one at the trough of the other wave The waves are in perfect opposition and their energies sum to a total of zero at all instances over the waves. This must mean there is a “negative” world identical to ours “hidden” between our positive Planck times and this matches CPT Symmetry perfectly The anti matter imbalance is solved by this view since the “anti” exists in the same position as a positive matter particle and to expose it we simply need to un-polarise its space time. However, any such anti particles we observe are still binary, but with their positive particle now hidden between the un polarised Planck times. I could go on and show how many of today’s conundrums are answered by this view of time, but I would not attempt to re-write my book here “The Binary Universe”.
The Aether does exists. It is the standing wave of energy we know as time. Don’t forget, the definition of a field is that the entity of the field varies in magnitude with position in the field and we know time does just that don’t we. The preferred reference frame is the field of time!
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William Kay
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I will tread delicately Ken as you are conceding the existence of an “aether” which, as you know is a conversation-ender, in many Big Physics circles.
You are fusing time with aether with time. I prefer to keep those two separate.
You use the word “wave” ten times in the second paragraph. There shall be mention of wave without describing the medium.
The word “field” (Herb Rose does this as well) becomes a default file where we stuff things too difficult to explain.
Planck Time is an arbitrary unit like a “fortnight.”
I am a total simpleton. My aether is like a gas or liquid-like substance residing in everyday three-dimensional space. The constituent components of aether are tiny particles a millionth (or so) the size of an electron. They are hard mass-bearing spheroids. They form combinations with other aether particles. They are comprised of smaller particles still. Aether particles are small enough to flow through our molecules but waves moving through the aether readily knock electrons around.
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Herb Rose
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Hi William,
I will try to explain what I mean by field but as you’ve probably noticed I am not good at this.
The aether that light travels in is a result of the two components making the universe: matter and energy.
Matter has a force, electric, that it radiates and interacts with other matter. The strength or concentration of this force decreases with distance from the matter making a “field” where the matter has influence on other objects even though there are no protons or electrons present in the area.
Energy is the other basic building block of the universe. and has a different force associated with it. Energy is attracted to positive matter and concentrates around it forcing negative matter away from positive matter (neutron versus a hydrogen atom). The force decreases with distance making an energy field that interacts with other matter and energy forces or fields.
Light is a disturbance where a change of strengthen in one field produces a reaction in the other force transmitting the disturbance.
These two forces permeate the universe but their distribution and concentration are not uniform as believed in the old theory of aether. The Earth has two forces associated with it and the sun has the two forces associated with it. These forces decrease in strength from the bodies producing resulting in weaker “fields” with greater distances. When the force arrive at point where they are equal to the force from another source it determines the size of the two objects in that area. It is here where a disturbance from one source is transferred to the other object. The disturbance slowed as it moved through the declining force of the source (red shift) then increases is speed (blue shift) as it travels through the forces of the other objects.
What I mean by fields area areas separate from the body where that body still has control, sort of like a country’s claim of an economic zone in international waters.
I hope this explains my concepts of fields and aether.
With energy being attracted to positive matter you can explain how both the creation and decay of a neutron produces energy and eliminates the need for a strong and weak nuclear forces.
Herb
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William Kay
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I am loathe to quote Ol’ Freddy Engels but here I go.
“In every natural science, it is always an advance if the word “force” can be somewhere gotten rid of. Just because we are not yet clear about the complicated conditions of a phenomenon, we often take refuge in the word “force” (or energy). We express thereby not our knowledge, but our lack of knowledge of the nature of the law and its mode of action..”
In your piece you mentioned that small particles function much the same as big particles. This caused some Commenters’ heads to explode; but I agree with that assertion. The goal should be a mechanical description of sub-atomic particle interaction i.e. a series of analogies from our visible world.
We simply can’t just say there is a “force” which weakens with distance. How exactly does that happen?
If I could make a suggestion, and I too am a novice, it would be interesting to hear what you had to say on George-Louis Le Sage’s theory of gravity. That would be require a full article not a comment. Keep it mechanical!
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Herb Rose
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Hi William,
When I speak of energy I am referring to a thing, one of the building blocks of the universe, not to a property of an object. This is confusing I know but I could not come up with an alternate name for this basic building block. What most people think of as energy is changes in this basic material.
The basic impetus for all action is positive matter with both energy and negative matter being attracted to it. Picture positive matter as a machine dispensing money. A crowd of people gather around it trying to get the money as it is distributed. The crowd consist of men (energy) and women (negative matter) all trying to get the money. The men being stronger (a more powerful force) are able to displace women back into the crowd. (This is how energy is able to displace an electron from a neutron molecule creating a hydrogen atom and how the nucleus of an atom can emit an electron.) The density or strength of the crowd (field) decreases with distance from the dispenser (the chance of getting money is reduced so less effort is expended) so negative matter remains around the positive matter but displaced from the machine.A disturbance in the crowd (a man jostles a woman) is transmitted through the crowd (the woman pokes the man behind her with a hat pin). A person further from the dispenser has a larger personal space than the people close to the dispenser but this space is defended transmitting the disturbance.
With that description I am sure many women will take offense although none is intended. I wrote an article for PSI called HOW IT ALL WORKS describing my thoughts on how it is the same action that causes a neutron to split into a proton,, an electron, and a gamma ray, a radioactive atom to decay, and the sun to burn. I am sorry but I don’t know how to do links so you will need to use the Search function at PSI if you are interested.
Herb
William Kay
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There is a video version of this article (18 minutes) found below. It does contain a few misstatements so it is no substitute for the article above; especially as it is accompanied by John’s on-target graphics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ6Ou8ckmb8&t=579s
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jerry krause
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Hi William,
First, I claim to know nothing so I can only ask questions.
You wrote: “Ives did his most important work in New York as Director of Electro-Optics at Bell Labs; overseeing a team of 200 engineers and technicians.” Am I to believe this team of 200 engineers and technicians contributed nothing, or almost nothing, to the practical success of this ‘large’ team?
For you wrote: “Ives personally held 102 patents on inventions related to: color photography, facsimile, television, phosphorescence, illumination, photometry and photo-electricity.” Am I to believe that there are no other names beside Ives on every one of these 102 patents? If so, wouldn’t it seem that Bell was wasting money paying the salaries of these 200 engineers and technicians of the team? Doesn’t the word-team-imply that the 200 engineers and technicians were ‘pulling’ together on specific projects?.
You wrote: “In 1937, after freeing himself from practical duties at Bell, Ives fired-off five Theoretical Physics papers.” Based on this statement: Can I conclude that Ives distained the practical work which resulted in so many patents?
Finally, I ask: What practical achievements have engineers and technicians missed because Einstein and others have theoretically concluded that theoretically there is no Ether (Aether)?
Have a good day, Jerry
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William Kay
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Hi Jerry, thanks for the questions.
There is no suggestion that Ives was a one-man-show at Bell Labs Applied Electro-Optics Department. He was Project Engineer or “top dog” as regards much of their most important work. This is born out by Bell Labs publicity photos.
The list of 102 patents I have for Ives contained about a dozen patents where Ives’ name is listed along with the names of one or more people. I am presuming a much larger list of patents would have been claimed by Bell/ATT.
Ives wanted to join the fray regarding Theoretical Physics but was consumed with practical work at Bell Labs. In 1937 they gave him something of a sabbatical. He was allowed to use their equipment for experiments but there were problems as shareholders had to be assured that his experimental research was aimed at commercial projects which it wasn’t. Most of his patents pre-date 1937. He invented the canal ray tube for his experiments.
The final question is the trillion dollar question. Theoretical Physics is divorced from reality. Profs are good at taking credit for tech advances but their contribution has been minimal. Where would we be if theory aligned with practise, I do not know.
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jerry krause
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Hi William,
Thank you very much for your comments. Before I came to my computer this morning I had decided that I needed to begin composing an essay titled: Practical Versus Intellectual. Alchemists were very practical but they were running with the wrong ideas of the intellectuals. But the alchemists, not physicists, finally proved by their experiments that matter was not endlessly.divisible. When will we ever learn that what we think must be tested by experiment? Or, that what we think must be guided by experiment (simple, common, observations).
Have a good day, Jerry
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Cliff Saunders
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Dear William and John,
What a lovely way to start a morning, a fresh cup of coffee, a view of the Mediterranean and a wonderfully written article on a difficult topic.
Thank you.
It was 1966ish and my best friend at the time introduced me to his Dad who worked as an engineer at Smith’s Industries, near Bishop’s Cleeve, Gloucestershire. I was 16. Over tea and scones, my friend’s Dad talked about The Aether, Micholson-Morley, the potential that the Earth’s spin pumps The Aether radially outwards and the difficulties this potential would have for experiments and so on.
A long while later I met Hilton Ratcliffe and read his “Stephen Hawking Smoked My Socks” and “The Virtue of Heresy” both of which further inflamed my imagination.
Now this gem to wrap my head around.
I’m going to have a lie down now.
OMwards!
Cliff
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John O'Sullivan
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Cliff, glad you like it! All the best.
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Robert Beatty
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In some ways it is quite a relief to know that after all this time nobody can really explain what light is. From what has been said, it seems that if we take a little bit of Einstein (not too much), mix it with some of Newton’s offerings, and apply it to the Shapiro delay, we come up with a mixture that matches the astronomical observations. See http://www.bosmin.com/PSL/LightWaves.pdf
The side benefits of this is that it lays the big bang theory to rest, and there is no need to propose the existence of an aether.
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William Kay
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Robert: I whole-heartedly agree with you that the Big Bang Theory is junk science. The Universe is an infinite expanse; thus any babble about its expansion is unintelligible. I also agree with you that “red-shift”, at least as it relates to galactic light emission, does not correlate to recessional velocity.
At the same time, however, your 1,000 word paper uses the word “wave” 8 times and implies “wave” another dozen times. The concept of light as a wave is implicit or explicit in every sentence.
What are these waves moving through? A wave without a medium is inconceivable. Light consists of aetherial waves. Don’t over-think this, Robert.
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Robert Beatty
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William,
Thanks for these comments. Waves in this application, relates to electrical – magnetic oscillations. The light has an initial energy impulse and vector. The energy pulse transmits by cycling between electrical and magnetic phases – and in my opinion, an ephemeral mass phase in between. The whole thing is self sustaining, a bit like a pendulum. So no aether is required.
I will revisit my file to clarify the points you have made.
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Robert Beatty
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William,
File http://www.bosmin.com/PSL/LightWaves.pdf has been updated. Thanks for your suggestions.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
A pendulum works in a gravitational (energy) field. Does a pendulum on the moon swing at a slower rate than a pendulum on the Earth?
Herb
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Robert Beatty
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‘Since the force of gravity is less on the moon, the pendulum would swing slower for the same pendulum length and angle, and its frequency would be less.’
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
Right.and in weaker electric and magnetic (energy) fields an electromagnetic wave will travel slower and its frequency would be less causing a red shift.
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Robert Beatty
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Herb,
“in weaker electric and magnetic (energy) fields an electromagnetic wave will travel slower and its frequency would be less causing a red shift.”
This is not what the Shapiro experimental results show. They show a stronger gravity field causes the slowing. IMO an electromagnetic oscillation (not wave, see William Kay comment above), with BE, is the means by which light propagates its inherent energy.
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HerbRose
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Hi Robert’
When light enters a stronger gravitational/magnetic/energy field it refracts and proceeds in a diagonal direction so the distance it travels increases. If you were to do an experiment where you split a beam of light and had one beam travel through air while the other traveled through a glass rod the light traveling through the air would reach the sensor before the light traveling through the glass. Since the light traveling in the glass refracts and takes a diagonal path through the rod it will travel a greater distance and the only way to tell which light beam traveled faster is to use the angle of refraction to determine the distance the light in the glass traveled and then determine its speed. Guntar Nimitiz did an experiment where he showed a microwave traveling through a brass block faster than the speed of light through air.
Herb
Robert Beatty
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Herb,
Refraction is well understood. Here we are discussing bending due to gravity. Seems to me they are not related and one cannot be compared with the other – unless you are an aether supporter.
The Nimtz work is controversial:-
“Chris Lee has stated that there is no new physics involved here, and that the apparent faster-than-c transmission can be explained by carefully considering how the time of arrival is measured (whether the group velocity or some other measure). Recent papers by Herbert Winful point out errors in Nimtz’ interpretation.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günter_Nimtz
Are you aware of any confirming studies?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
I am an aether supporter but I believe the aether, in which light travels, is not some new entity which was the purpose of the Michelson-Morley experiment, but the electric and magnetic fields associated with all objects in the universe. Light travels through one object’s fields to another object’s fields. The reason the Michelson-Morley experiment had negative results is because it was always conducted in the Earth’s fields not because the speed of light is constant.In deep space it is the expanded fields of atom that transmit light.
I recall that a doctor Chou (?) in California did similar experiment showing waves traveling faster than the speed of light and it was he who came up with the tunneling photon excuse.
I am aware of the objections to the Nimitz experiment and would suggest that those with the objections should repeat the experiment themselves. That’s what experiments are for. The objections are from a belief that what they believe cannot be wrong (Karl Popper’s article) which is the same reasoning that created the neutrino because E=mc^2 did not give the correct answer for the energy produced from radioactive decay.
Herb
PetterT
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Aether may explain dark energy and dark matter, see:
https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy
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Robert Beatty
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PetterT,
This is the circular argument that originates from interstellar spectrum redshift observations. Redshift is a real observation, but why it has shifted must be defined before any followup speculations can be sensibly concluded. The verified Shapiro Delay is critical in this consideration as discussed at https://principia-scientific.com/shapiro-effect-why-light-from-distant-galaxies-is-redshifted/ This tells us that the speed of light will vary when passing through changing gravitation influences, so we now have a solid reason to explain redshift observations without having to invoke a rapidly expanding universe, etc. etc.
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William Kay
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Yes, PetterT you have hit the target! Aether particles are matter. They have mass (weight). The gravitational anomalies that gave rise to “Dark Matter” theory can be easily explained by acknowledging that our visible galaxy floats amidst an invisible hurricane of aether.
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Robert Beatty
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William,
“The gravitational anomalies that gave rise to “Dark Matter” theory can be easily explained by acknowledging that our visible galaxy floats amidst an invisible hurricane of aether.”
All we have to do is substitute ‘gravitational anomalies’ with ‘an invisible hurricane of aether’?
If we accept black holes with their observed high gravitational influences, we have an explanation for gravitational anomalies which are proposed in my Gravispheres paper https://principia-scientific.com/publications/PROM/PROM-Beatty-Gravispheres.pdf
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Dimity
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From someone who’s not a physicist (sorry), three possibly naive and dopey questions:
If an aether exists, does this mean that a vacuum, a volume totally devoid of matter, cannot exist?
If such a vacuum could exist, would light pass through it?
If only energy exists and matter is just bundles of confined or constrained or integrated energy, is the answer to the first question “No” and to the second “Yes”, or have I just entered some existential loop? Or am I just dopey?
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Robert Beatty
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Dimity,
Good questions. “If an aether exists, does this mean that a vacuum, a volume totally devoid of matter, cannot exist?”
If we confine our thoughts to space, IMO the answer lies in the degree of vacuum. Space includes many elements with regions that are more populated where gravitational effects are highest. Other regions experience various forms of self sustaining electromagnetic oscillations, and rarified particle populations. We cannot yet define how gravity works, but whatever causes it, it seems to be all pervasive through space, but at varying strengths. If aether is gravity, then aether exists.
“If such a vacuum could exist, would light pass through it?”
I think it could, because light seems to carry its own means of propagation due to its inherent energy having the capacity to oscillate between electromagnetic forms.
“If only energy exists and matter is just bundles of confined or constrained or integrated energy, is the answer to the first question “No” and to the second “Yes”,”
These are both logical conclusions.
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