Einstein's Aether
- From: Laurent <cyberdyno@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 10:33:05 -0700
Is empty space real? Yes.
Does it exist? No. It isn't matter, therefore can't exist... yet, it
is.
Can it be measured? No, since it isn't matter, it is unmeasurable.
It is empty because it is immaterial, but has physical qualities. It
also lacks the property of motion, so it can't be described as
containing parts that follow a time line. The universe is background
free and there is no fixed or absolute frameof reference, nor absolute
time.
Isn't empty space all pervading, that which is between and inside
particles, like the aether? Isn't it eternal? Isn't it real? Isn't
empty space what Einstein described as the gravitational aether, a
continuos field, in that now famous 1920 essay? Aether (empty space),
like Einstein said, is not comprised of particles or components that
follow a time line. Motion is not one of its properties. You know why?
Because it is everywhere.
Empty space is the origin, a plenum, also known as the aether. That's
where field properties, like propagation speed and direction, or force
lines, are determined, and that's why it is physical but immaterial,
because even though it isn't matter it can act on matter.
Like I said, empty space is like a point, dimensionless, yet, it
contains the universe.
Look, it's really simple. Empty space was, then came the universe.
There can be empty space without a universe, but not a universe
without empty space... just like there can't be matter without
causality. Reduce yourself to a size smaller than the smallest
particle and what you get? More empty space. Empty space that, like
Einstein said, has physical properties.
Einstein's aether - which is the aether I mostly talk about - isn't
bound by time , but by topolgical properties, a set of ratios
determined at the aether scale; frame independent constants. A very
small number of fixed laws by which all matter and space must abide.
Physical (real) but non-material quantities (topological). Time
independent continuity and connectedness. We can also call it
topological space, inertial space, or even momentum space.
Aether is what allows EPR (non-local communication) type phenomena to
take place.
Lorentz invariant values originate at the aether level, they are real
but non-material ratios which often help determine Lorentz invariant
geometrical properties of objects. Take the fine structure constant
for example, change its value and you get a totally different
universe.
In relation to covariance and the twins paradox, there isn't a change
in the incoming flux of quantum matter (ZPR, material space, Guth's
'false vacuum') as much as there is a change in the information
processing speed, or more simply said, a change in process speed.
Also, that's where inertia comes from, a change in process speed.
Since the speed of light, hence, the propagation speed of fields, must
remain constant for all the other constants to continue to be
proportianally the same, process (mass) has to increase in order to
keep up... to a point, once you go over the speed limit and fields
can't keep up, matter disintegrates.
To measure aether drag all you need to do is measure the momentum of a
moving object.
--
Laurent
--------------------------------------------------------
Some say the aether concept was already discredited, but they are
wrong. Please read carefully:
[ From: http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep3-24.htm ]
Einstein and the Ether - by Ludwik Kostro
(Apeiron, Montreal, 2000)
"Whether gravitational, electrical, and nuclear interactions can be
encompassed within a unified theoretical structure, and whether such a
structure will be conceived as a plenary space with physical
properties, remains to be seen. But if the history of the successive
dynasties of aether is any guide, we can eventually proclaim:
The luminiferous aether is dead!
Long live the aether!" --- Owen Gingerich
Nowadays, nobody talks any longer about the ether in scientific
ortohodox books, in higher school or university classes, etc., yet
this concept has been one of the corner stones of many rational
interpretation of natural phenomena for a great long time - to such an
extent that a good physicist recently wrote to us that all XIXth
century physics tried to "prove the existence of the ether which was
later proved not to exist".
If we ask why the ether has disappeared from the major scenes of our
knowledge of Nature, everybody will answer that Einstein has proved,
with his celebrated theory of relativity, that the ether does not
exist. This was one of those concepts that old physicists were
accustomed to use in their "primitive" speculations, but today,
luckily, it has been completely overthrown, together with other
similar relics of "superstition", by XXth century scientists. It was
in that time that mankind has realized the greatest achievements of
ever in science and technology, which can be interpreted as the goal
of a long walk, that began thanks to such men like Copernic, Galilei,
Descartes, Newton,... just sprung out from the darkness of Middle
Ages.
"common people", and even the "common scientist", would be surprised
in reading this book (about 240 pp.), written by the physicist and
philosopher Ludwik Kostro, and intended for physicists as well as for
historians of science, philosophers, or in general for any people
interested in the development of scientific culture. As a matter of
fact, it is entirely dedicated to the troublesome relationships
between the greatest scientist of all times - or at least many people
think so! - and the elusive ether.
[...]
Let us see the question with the author's own words (Introduction):
"In the eyes of most physicists and philosophers, Albert Einstein has
acquired a reputation for abolishing the concept of the ether as a
medium filling space (or identified with it), which was responsible
for carrying electromagnetic, gravitational and other interactions.
Today, this notion is echoed in textbooks, encyclopaedias, and
scientific reviews. However, it does not fully reflect the historical
truth, and in a sense even represents a distortion [...] Einstein
denied the existence of the ether for only 11 years - from 1905 to
1916. Thereafter, he recognized that his attitude was too radical and
even regretted that his works published before 1916 had so definitely
and absolutely rejected the existence of the ether."
The author proves this assertion directly referring to the opinions
which Einstein himself expressed during his life, in a book which is
therefore full of quotations and precise bibliographical references
(up to the point of quoting even the original Deutsch passages in a
special appendix). Here they are some examples of Einstein's thoughts:
"It would have been more correct if I had limited myself, in my
earlier publications, to emphasizing only the nonexistence of an ether
velocity, instead of arguing the total nonexistence of the ether, for
I can see that with the word ether we say nothing else than that space
has to be viewed as a carrier of physical qualities."
Moreover:
" [...] in 1905 I was of the opinion that it was no longer allowed to
speak about the ether in physics. This opinion, however, was too
radical, as we will see later when we discuss the general theory of
relativity. It does remain allowed, as always, to introduce a medium
filling all space and to assume that the electromagnetic fields (and
matter as well) are its states.
[...] once again 'empty' space appears as endowed with physical
properties, i.e., no longer as physically empty, as seemed to be the
case according to special relativity [...] ".
And again:
"This word ether has changed its meaning many times in the development
if science [...] Its story, by no means finished, is continued by
relativity theory."
It seems interesting to quote even the following passages by Einstein,
where he somehow admits the rational necessity of the ether, that is
to say, the necessity of conceiving a space which cannot be thought of
but endowed with physical properties:
"There is an important argument in favour of the hypothesis of the
ether. To deny the existence of the ether means, in the last analysis,
denying all physical properties to empty space."
"The ether hypothesis was bound always to play a part even if it is
mostly a latent one at first in the thinking of physicists."
----------------------------------------------------------------
From - ETHER AND THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY by A.Einstein (1920)
" But on the other hand there is a weighty argument to be adduced in
favour of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether is ultimately to
assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. The
fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view. ---
*For the mechanical behaviour of a corporeal system hovering freely in
empty space depends not only on relative positions (distances) and
relative velocities, but also on its state of rotation, which
physically may be taken as a characteristic not appertaining to the
system in itself.* --- In order to be able to look uponthe rotation of
the system, at least formally, as something real, Newton objectivises
space. --- * Since he classes his absolute space together with real
things, for him rotation relative to an absolute space is also
something real. Newton might no less well have called his absolute
space "Ether"; what is essential is merely that besides observable
objects, --- *another thing, which is not perceptible, must be looked
upon as real,* --- to enable acceleration or rotation to be looked
upon as something real.
It is true that Mach tried to avoid having to accept as real something
which is not observable by endeavouring to substitute in mechanics a
mean acceleration with reference to the totality of the masses in the
universe in place of an acceleration with reference to absolute space.
But inertial resistance opposed to relative acceleration of distant
masses presupposes action at a distance; and as the modern physicist
does not believe that he may accept this action at a distance, he
comes back once more, if he follows Mach, to the ether, which has to
serve as medium for the effects of inertia. But this conception of the
ether to which we are led by Mach's way of thinking differs
essentially from the ether as conceived by Newton, by Fresnel, and by
Lorentz. Mach's ether not only conditions the behaviour of inert
masses, but is also conditioned in its state by them.
Mach's idea finds its full development in the ether of the general
theory of relativity. According to this theory the metrical qualities
of the continuum of space-time differ in the environment of different
points of space-time, and are partly conditioned by the matter
existing outside of the territory under consideration.
[Which means that all points in space are interconnected] -- Laurent
This spacetime variability of the reciprocal relations of the
standards of space and time, or, perhaps, the recognition of the fact
that " empty space " in its physical relation is neither homogeneous
nor isotropic, compelling us to describe its state by ten functions
(the gravitation potentials g[greek subscript mu, nu]), has, I think,
finally disposed of the view that space is physically empty. But
therewith the conception of the ether has again acquired an
intelligible content, although this content differs widely from that
of the ether of the mechanical undulatory theory of light. --- *The
ether of the general theory of relativity is a medium which is itself
devoid of all mechanical and kinematical qualities, but helps to
determine mechanical (and electromagnetic) events.*
What is fundamentally new in the ether of the general theory of
relativity as opposed to the ether of Lorentz consists in this, ---
*that the state of the former is at every place determined by
connections with the matter and the state of the ether in neighbouring
places,* --- which are amenable to law in the form of differential
equations; whereas the state of the Lorentzian ether in the absence of
electromagnetic fields is conditioned by nothing outside itself, and
is everywhere the same. The ether of the general theory of relativity
is transmuted conceptually into the ether of Lorentz if we substitute
constants for the functions of space which describe the former,
disregarding the causes which condition its state. Thus we may also
say, I think, that the ether of the general theory of relativity is
the outcome of the Lorentzian ether, through relativation. "
[...]
" ...when H. A. Lorentz entered upon the scene. He brought theory into
harmony with experience by means of a wonderful simplification of
theoretical principles. He achieved this, the most important advance
in the theory of electricity since Maxwell, by taking from ether its
mechanical, and from matter its electromagnetic qualities. As in empty
space, so too in the interior of material bodies, the ether, and not
matter viewed atomistically, was exclusively the seat of
electromagnetic fields. According to Lorentz the elementary particles
of matter alone are capable of carrying out movements; their
electromagnetic activity is entirely confined to the carrying of
electric charges. Thus Lorentz succeeded in reducing all
electromagnetic happenings to Maxwell's equations for free space.
As to the mechanical nature of the Lorentzian ether, it may be said of
it, in a somewhat playful spirit, that immobility is the only
mechanical property of which it has not been deprived by H, A.
Lorentz. It may be added that the whole change in the conception of
the ether which the special theory of relativity brought about,
consisted in taking away from the ether its last mechanical quality,
namely, its immobility. " ---- Albert Einstein
----------------------------------------------------
" Quantum phenomena are caused by fractal topological defects embedded
in and forming a growing three-dimensional fractal process-space,
which is essentially a quantum foam. " --- Reginald T. Cahill
----------------------------------------------------
"Topological space (aether) can be defined as a set with a collection
of subsets satisfying the conditions that both the empty set and the
set itself belong to the collection, the union of any number of the
subsets is also an element of the collection, and the intersection of
any finite number of the subsets is an element of the collection." --
Webster dictionary
----------------------------------------------------
Einstein's non-material aether of 1920 even comforms to topological
quantum field theory.
" But therewith the conception of the ether has again acquired an
intelligible content, although this content differs widely from that
of the ether of the mechanical ondulatory theory of light. The ether
of the general theory of relativity is a medium which is itself devoid
of all mechanical and kinematical qualities, but helps to determine
mechanical (and electromagnetic) events."
" Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of
relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense,
therefore, there exists an ether. 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 (measuring-rods and clocks),
nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this
ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic
of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked
through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it. " ------
Albert Einstein
--------------------------------------------------
[This are excerpts from a John Baez essay "Higher-dimensional algebra
and Planck scale physics", published in the book "Physics Meets
Philosophy at the Planck Scale"]
***" ...in topological quantum field theory we cannot measure time in
seconds, because there is no background metric available to let us
count the passage of time! We can only keep track of topological
change. "***
" The topology of spacetime is arbitrary and there is no background
metric. "
" Quantum topology is very technical, as anything involving
mathematical physicists inevitably becomes. But if we stand back a
moment, it should be perfectly obvious that differential topology and
quantum theory must merge if we are to understand background-free
quantum field theories. In physics that ignores general relativity, we
treat space as a background on which the process of change occurs. But
these are idealizations which we must overcome in a background-free
theory. In fact, the concepts of 'space' and 'state' are two aspects
of a unified whole, and likewise for the concepts of 'spacetime' and
'process'. It is a challenge, not just for mathematical physicists,
but also for philosophers, to understand this more deeply. " --------
John Baez
--------------------------------------------
"When theorizing about an all-inclusive reality, the first and most
important principle is containment, which simply tells us what we
should and should not be considering. Containment principles, already
well known in cosmology, generally take the form of tautologies; e.g.,
"The physical universe contains all and only that which is physical."
The predicate "physical", like all predicates, here corresponds to a
structured set, "the physical universe" (because the universe has
structure and contains objects, it is a structured set). But this
usage of tautology is somewhat loose, for it technically amounts to a
predicate-logical equivalent of propositional tautology called
autology, meaning self-description. Specifically, the predicate
physical is being defined on topological containment in the physical
universe, which is tacitly defined on and descriptively contained in
the predicate physical, so that the self-definition of "physical" is a
two-step operation involving both topological and descriptive
containment. While this principle, which we might regard as a
statement of "physicalism", is often confused with materialism on the
grounds that "physical" equals "material", the material may in fact be
only a part of what makes up the physical. Similarly, the physical may
only be a part of what makes up the real. Because the content of
reality is a matter of science as opposed to mere semantics, this
issue can be resolved only by rational or empirical evidence, not by
assumption alone." -------- Christopher Michael Langan
http://www.ctmu.org/CTMU/Articles/IntroCTMU.html
---------------------------------------------------------
Sir Edmund T. Whittaker in the preface to his scholarly and scientific
"A history of the Theories of Aether and Electricity" published in
1951 said:
"As everyone knows, the aether played a great part in the physics of
the nineteenth century; but in the first decade of the twentieth,
chiefly as result of the failure of attempts to observe the earth's
motion relative to the aether, and the acceptance of the principle
that such attempts must always fail, the word "aether" fell out of
favour, and it became customary to refer to the interplanetary spaces
as "vacuous"; the vacuum being conceived as mere emptiness, having no
properties except that of propagating electromagnetic waves. But with
the development of quantum electrodynamics, the vacuum has come to be
regarded as the seat of the "zero-point" oscillations of the
electromagnetic field, of the "zero-point" fluctuations of electric
charge and current, and of a "polarisation" corresponding to a
dielectric constant different from unity. It seems absurd to retain
the name "vacuum" for an entity so rich in physical properties, and
the historical word "aether" may fitly be retained." ----- Sir Edmund
T. Whittaker
-----------------------------------
In 1954 P.A.M. Dirac, a Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1933, said -
"The aetherless basis of physical theory may have reached the end of
its capabilities and we see in the aether a new hope for the future."
--- P. Dirac
-----------------------------------
The science popularizer Zukav writes -
"Quantum field theory resurrects a new kind of ether, e.g. particles
are excited states of the featureless ground state of the field (the
vacuum state). The vacuum state is so featureless and has such high
symmetry that we cannot assign a velocity to it experimentally." ----
G. Zukav
-----------------------------------
The very well known Tao of Physics by Capra states -
"This [quantum field] is indeed an entirely new concept which has been
extended to describe all subatomic particles and their interactions,
each type of particle corresponding to a different field. In these
'quantum field theories', the classical contrast between the solid
particles and the space surrounding them is completely overcome. The
quantum field is seen as the fundamental physical entity; a continuous
medium which is present everywhere in space. Particles are merely
local condensations of the field; concentrations of energy which come
and go, thereby losing their individual character and dissolving into
the underlying field. In the words of Albert Einstein:
" We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions
of space in which the field is extremely intense ... There is no place
in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the
field is the only reality. " (page 210)
--------------------------------------------------------
And they allowed Apollonius to ask questions; ...and he asked them of
what they thought the cosmos was composed; but they replied:
"Of elements."
"Are there then four" he asked.
"Not four," said Iarchas, "but five."
"And how can there be a fifth," said Apollonius, "alongside of water
and air and earth and fire?"
"There is the ether", replied the other, "which we must regard as the
stuff of which gods are made; for just as all mortal creatures inhale
the air, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether."
Apollonius again asked which was the first of the elements, and
Iarchas answered:
"All are simultaneous, for a living creature is not born bit by bit."
"Am I," said Apollonius, "to regard the universe as a living
creature?"
"Yes," said the other, "if you have a sound knowledge of it, for it
engenders all living things."
- The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus, 220AD.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Physical knowledge has advanced much since 1905, notably by the
arrival of quantum mechanics, and the situation [about the scientific
plausibility of aether] has again changed. If one examines the
question in the light of present-day knowledge, one finds that the
aether is no longer ruled out by relativity, and good reasons can now
be advanced for postulating an aether. . . We can now see that we may
very well have an aether, subject to quantum mechanics and conformable
to relativity, provided we are willing to consider a perfect vacuum as
an idealized state, not attainable in practice. From the experimental
point of view there does not seem to be any objection to this. We must
make some profound alterations to the theoretical idea of the
vacuum. . . Thus, with the new theory of electrodynamics we are rather
forced to have an aether."
---- P. A. M. Dirac, "Is There an Aether?"
Nature 168 (1951): 906-7.
----------------------------------------------------------
"...that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum,
without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their
action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so
great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.
Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to
certain laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have
left to the consideration of my readers." --- Isaac Newton
--------------------------------------------------------
Biography of Hegel: "...the idea that the two basic factors in nature
are what Hegel calls the 'aether' and 'matter'. The 'aether' is the
way the absolute appears most basically in nature as 'unity' and it
develops into 'difference' in various ways (or as the 'universal' that
is differentiated into 'particularities'); the aether develops itself
into 'matter' and this 'matter' then develops itself into the various
appearances of nature."
"In the draft of his 'Logic' in 1804, Hegel returned again to the
philosophy of nature, taking up the same themes, such as the appeal to
a dynamic of an 'aether' or 'absolute matter'. "...in the 1805-06
draft of the 'system'...Hegel opened the section on nature with the
statement that his conceptions of 'absolute matter or the
aether'...are equivalent in meanig to pure spirit, for this absolute
matter is nothing sensuous but rather the concept as pure concept
within itself, spirit existing as such. 'Absolute nmatter', that is,
is not something that we empirically encounter in the observation of
nature; it is a 'posit', an 'ideality, the 'totality' presupposed by
the more determinate explanations offered by the physicists".
http://cyberdyno1.tripod.com/
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