Theories of the Aether Scientific Theories of the Cosmic Aether
"Thus he then classified living creatures into genera and species, |
---|
- Xenocrates, On the life of Plato
Theories of the Aether |
---|
Article 0 - Historical Background of the Aether
Article 2 - Neoetherics ... Jerry Shifman
My model brings into vivid clarity the identity between gravity and acceleration. That is, it becomes transparently obvious that gravity and acceleration are identically the same thing. But far more interesting, this model provides an alternate explanation for the red shift. More correctly, it demonstrates a second explanation that could be operating in conjunction with the familiar explanation based on an expanding universe.
The principles of Neoetherics are presented through illustrations and thought experiments. No equations more complex than f = ma are used. ... Jerry Shifman - Thu, 6 Feb 1997, UseNet: alt.sci.physics.new-theories
Now I want to suggest that the universe is filled with a gas which is something like this and I will call it the aether. This aether will have a wave propagation speed of about 10^15 cm/s which is very much faster than light. The field which is represented by the pressure of the aether is I think the gravitational field of GR.
Note that I am suggesting that gravity waves propagate at a much higher velocity than the conventional idea, but there is no observational evidence that this is wrong, and it is in good agreement with the commonsense observation concerning the direction of the gravitational field. The traditional view of this is different in theory but not in practice.
The locations that we observe to have matter are actually low density aether regions. A black hole would be an aether vacuum. This is similar to a tornado having a very low internal pressure and density. The vortices which exist in the aether can interact also and as a result they make another field. I will call this the ether. It will be the ether of Maxwell's theory that carries the elctromagnetic fields. It has a propagation velocity that we call the speed of light, but does vary from place to place depending on the density and pressure of the aether. This is why space is considered bent by gravity in GR, but it is better to think of space as straight and the velocity of light as variable.
Note that the spelling of Aether for grAvity and Ether for Electromagnetism was chosen as an easy memory aid.
The subject of vortices and the equations which apply to them were fully calculated by Kelvin in 1880 and lead to exactly the correct equations for electromagnetism as explained by Paul Stowe [ed: See Article 21] in a recent post. He also reports that this is covered in "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity" by E Whitaker, Dover, 1989. - Ray Tomes
Article 4 - The Painted Pony and other publications ... Glird
Article 5 - Aether Theory ... Gene Goodman
Article 6 - Scalar Technology ... Warren York and Matt Campbell
Article 7 - Michaelson-Morley Misinterpretation
Article 8 - Discovery of an Unusual Energy by Other Scientists
Other research has been done to show that living creatures, and the physical chemistry of water, are sensitive to weather or cosmic factors in a manner than cannot be explained according to simple mechanical phenomena, such as light, temperature, humidity, or pressure. Frank Brown, of Northwestern University, spent decades demonstrating that the biological clocks of various living creatures were sensitive to lunar cycles and other cosmic forces. Nobody could refute him when he was alive, but today, after his death, his findings are widely ignored.
Likewise the works of the Italian chemist, Giorgio Piccardi, who demonstrated that the physical chemistry of water was changed by magnetism, sunspots, and other cosmic phenomena. His work helped to fuel an interest in the magnetic treatment of water in Europe, leading to new methods for reducing scale deposits in household plumbing, and in industrial boilers. Magnetism, correctly applied, can alter the solubility characteristics of water, allowing dissolved substances to remain in solution at concentrations higher than normal for a given temperature."
Article 9 - The Myth of Quantum Consciousness ... by Victor J. Stenger
Newton also had proposed that vibrations of the aether might be excited by the brain. This speculation forms the conceptual foundation for the modern myth of quantum consciousness and the related belief that the human mind commands special powers - psychic forces - that transcend the material universe.
Newton had envisioned matter and light to be particulate in nature, though they appear continuous to the human eye. Gravity, however, seemed to be something else, acting invisibly - holistically - over the entire universe. In the mid-nineteenth century, the mathematical concept of the field was developed to describe the apparent continuity of matter, light, and gravity. A field has a value at each point in space, in contrast to the properties of a particle which are localized to a tiny region of space. To some current observers, fields are holistic entities while particles typify the reductionist view of nature, where everything is reduced to its parts. Holists, with great profundity, inform us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and so the reductionist view must be discarded. Note, however, that fields were not invented last week, after some great burst of intuition by a Capra or a Lanza, but appeared in reductionist physics over a century ago. Little in the new holism is really very new, or very logical.
Pressure and density are two examples of matter fields. In continuous elastic media, pressure an density propagate as sound waves when the media are excited. As the phenomena of electricity and magnetism became better understood, they were also described in terms of fields. When Maxwell discovered that the equations which united electricity with magnetism called for the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum at the speed of light, it was suggested that the vacuum was not empty but filled with an elastic medium - the aether - whose excitation produced the phenomenon of light.
Electromagnetic waves beyond the narrow spectrum of visible light were predicted and soon observed and put to use in "wireless telegraphy." One of the early workers in wireless telegraphy was the English physicist Oliver Lodge. While making major contributions to physics and engineering, Lodge joined William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace (co-discoverer of evolution) and other notable nineteenth century scientists in searching for phenomena that transcended the world of matter." - Victor J. Stenger.
Article 10 - The Farce of Physics ... Bryan G. Wallace
So we finally find that relativity is an ether theory after all, and that this ether has arbitrary abstract contradictory physical characteristics! This illustrates the arbitrary nature of relativity, most physicists, and for that matter, most physics text books, present the argument that relativity is not an ether theory. On page 467 we find that near the end of his life, Einstein wrote to his dear friend M. Besso in 1954:
The electronic book entitled "The Farce of Physics" is an extensively and meticulously documented account of the observations of Bryan G. Wallace over an extended period of time, concerning inconsistencies in the area of physics.
Article 11 - Aether Theory ... Frank Meno
In this model the known extent of the physical universe is filled with the aether, which is a highly compressed very hot gas. The particles that make up this gas are called gyrons because the necessary physical properties of the aether emerge from the gyroscopic behavior of these fundamental particles that have a special identical oblong form. The length of each gyron is assumed to correspond to the Planck length which is 1.616 X 10(-35) meter. Thus, for example, the proton, with a size on the order of 10(-15) m, which is considered to be a rotational dynamic state in the aether, is of galactic proportion relative to the gyron. Thus, such entities as the electron and proton, that are currently termed "fundamental particles", are viewed as particular rotational flows (vortices) involving large numbers of gyrons.
Due to the special shape of the gyrons, the aether, as a fluid, has very complicated properties that account for all such phenomena as charge, magnetism, spin, gravitation, and neutrinos. Photons and DeBroglie waves in turn correspond to spin and compressional waves in this fluid. - Frank Meno.
Article 12 - Model Mechanics - The Aether, Yes or No ... Ken Seto
Article 13 - Dissidents Challenge Physics Theory ... Billy Goodman
Clifford Will, a specialist in relativity at Washington University in St. Louis, agrees with Chappell on at least one point: The dissidents cannot publish in mainstream journals. "They are not in mainstream journals [because] they are wrong," he declares.
"Special relativity has been confirmed by experiment so many times that it borders on crackpot to say there is something wrong with it. Experiments have been done to test special relativity explicitly. The world's particle accelerators would not work if special relativity wasn't in effect. The global positioning system"--which uses satellites to help determine the exact location on Earth of anything possessing a special transmitter--"would not work if special relativity didn't work the way we thought it did."
Will, asserts Chappell, is "way off base. The global positioning system provides evidence against special relativity and for the existence of an aether."
Article 14 - A Brief Analysis of Relativity ... O.Tedenstig
Einstein was one of these persons who in this chaotic situation presented a quite different and radical idea. Instead of solving the problem which was discussed, he declared them as non_existent. He did that by introducing two postulates, where one of them proclaimed that the propagating velocity of light in vacou was an absolute physical constant, not effected either by movements of the source nor by movements of the observer. The aether concept was eleminiated, replacing it by nothing.
Einstein has been praised for his originality and boldness while he suggested principles of nature which was challenging common sense. However, his originality can be put in question because research has shown that many of his ideas were common known long before him. But Einstein was lucky because his ideas were accepted by a group of well known and prominent academics of that time : von Laue, Minkowski, Lorentz, Mach, Planck, Poincar'e and others. Einstein became an enormeous authority in science and became a symbol for geniality and originality, a guarantee for that the theory of relativity was correct and true.
Einstein's theory of relativity was published 1905 by the name "ON THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES" and was later followed by the general theory 1916. Besides these works, for which Einstein got his most fame, he did achievements in the area of quantum physics, " the photo electrical effect", a theory which later gave him the Nobel Prize Award. Hence not, contrary to what commonly is believed, he did not got the prize for his relativity theory which was judged to be too controversial of the members of the Nobel Committe.
Einstein published his theory at a time constituting a climax of debate concerning the fundamental nature of light and space going on since Newton's time. So, much was discussed and investigated when Einstein entered the scene. At an official lectures about five years earlier Poincar'e had suggested THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY in Paris and in St. Louis is USA. THE LENGTH CONTRACTION OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS had been suggested 1892 by Lorentz and Fitzgerald undependably of each other as a suggestion of solving Michelson and Morley's light interferometer experiments some years earlier with beginning from 1887 (note however that length contraction never has been proved experimentally, hence not any physical reality). THE TIME DILATION HYPOTHESIS saying that physical clocks will slow down as a result of moving in relation to a light source was suggested by J.Larmor already 1900 and the formula for it is the same as in Einstein's theory. THE MASS INCREASE of moving particles was experimentally discovered by Kaufman in 1901, hence was no theoritical prediction by the relativity theory. This phenomenon some years later was investigated by A. Pais and Lorentz who also were suggesting mathematical expressions for this mass increase, expressions which appear in Einstein's theory later. And even THE FORMULA E=m.c(2) suggesting a close relationship between energy and mass was suggested several years before Einstein by Lorentz, Poincar'e, Langevin and others. THE MATHEMATICS OF SPACE AND TIME was developed by Lorentz and appear in modified form in Einstein's theory. THE CONSTANT PROPAGATING VELOCITY OF LIGHT IN VACUUM had with increasing precision been confirmed by experiments with beginning by Ole Römer in the seventeenth century but not covered by any ultimate experiments including moving sources and observers, which Einstein's theory claims. It was not any great achievement to suggest it and the risk of disclosing it was minimal. And in addition, from the beginning it was Maxwell's idea to define that the velocity of light from moving sources was invariant and he had good reasons for it because his theory was an aether theory. Einstein had no such concrete reason to offer.
Hence, Einstein's theory was mainly constructed by two fundamental postulates, combined with the principle of relativity. The theory generates results which violate common sense, but the theory has in spite of that succeeded to get common acceptable. That is very strange in light of the fact that science in commonly is very careful in judging results from new theories.
Article 15 - Dramatis Personae of Aether Drift ... Chronological perspective
Article 16 - What Holds The Universe Together? ... Lambert Dolphin
Article 17 - The Orgone Research of Wilhelm Reich ... James DeMeo
In the late 1800s, Michelson and Morley searched for but did not detect Newton’s static aether. But their student, Dayton Miller, did detect and fully document a moving, dynamic, metal reflectable form of it. And so did Reich, who discovered this same dynamic energy as the sensible and measurable sexual-biological-cosmic orgone energy. Reich’s works not only undermine many popular "facts" regarding human behavior and the origins and functioning of life, but also all the various mechanistic and mystical theories of science which demand the absence of a dynamic energy in the natural world. Gardner and the CSICOP gang oppose Reich not because he failed to provide good empirical evidence for such an energy, but for just the opposite reason, because he did.
The above concepts are offered not as a definitive solution to the problem of finding a scientifically acceptable explanation for psi, but as a working hypothesis to be tested and elaborated in collaborative research between psi researchers, and workers in physics, biology, neurophysiology, and related scientific disciplines."
This paper is a brief investigation of that medium- called the ether. If light truly is a wave, then an ether is essential.
The properties of the hypothesized ether are very unusual. One type of medium is required by Maxwell's electromagnetic equations. Yet another type of medium is required from the noninterference of the ether with motions of bodies in our universe. - Amara Graps
Article 20 - Quantum fluctuations of empty space ... Stochastic Electrodynamics - Dr Harold Puthoff & others
A second ZPF article, originally published in THE SCIENCES, Vol. 34, No. 6, November / December 1994, pp. 26-31, and authored by Bernhard Haisch, Alfonso Rueda & H.E. Puthoff, provides a first glimpse of a postmodern physics, in which mass, inertia and gravity arise from underlying electromagnetic processes:
Theoretical considerations indicate that the ZPF should be a background sea of electromagnetic radiation that is both uniform and isotropic (the same in all directions).
The zero-point field is completely uniform for observers in uniform motion. But it is asymmetric for observers in accelerated motion. In 1994, we and Puthoff examined a phenomenon no one had thought to investigate before: how the magnetic component of the zero-point field interacts with matter during acceleration. The result was surprising, to say the least. The magnetic Lorentz force opposed acceleration with a strength that varied in direct proportion to the magnitude of the acceleration (see figure). It looked like a derivation of Newton's second law, F=ma, heretofore considered an underivable postulate."
One final article, entitled Inertia theory - Magic roundabout, and authored by Paul Davies, on the meaning of Mach's principle, provides further commentary concerning the emergence of theory about the Zero Point Field, and its relationship to the common day experience of inertia:
Article 21 - A Framework Hypothesis for the ZPE Field ... Paul Stowe
The discovery by Max Planck.s in 1900 that the emission of thermal radiation could only occur in discrete quantities related to a emission constant (called Planck's constant) and the subsequent evolution of quantum mechanics, has resulted in an inability to establish a standard foundation for all classes of physical phenomena. Recent efforts not withstanding (Superstring theories, SU(3)XSU(2)XU(1) ...etc), there still remains a distinct separation of quantum mechanics from other branches of physics, notably general relativity. This discussion suggests a common foundation for all physical phenomena and derives the known physical constants (h, e, o, µo, , R). It also provides for the manifestation of the four known forces as well as a simple explanation of there existence.
Article 22 - Post Relativistic Gravity ... and quantization thereof - Ilja Schmelzer
The ether is simply described by the field gij(x,t), is dynamical and interacts with matter via the Einstein equations. Thus, gravity is the result of the interaction of matter with the dynamical ether: matter -> ether -> other matter. g0i/g00 can be interpreted as the ether velocity.
The author hopes that, because the configuration space of this theory is different from general relativity, canonical quantization will be much simpler compared with canonical quantization of general relativity. Some of the quantization problems of general relativity are not present (different topologies, black hole singularity, local energy density, problem of time). - Ilja Schmelzer
Article 23 - Aether and the Theory of Relativity ... Albert Einstein
Article 24 - The RAPR Dissident Physics Newsletter ... Millennium Twain
If you want to follow-up the (very) few people in the world who HAVE taken an interest in uncovering and communicating the nature and structure of the aether -- I would refer to you my mirror webpages, and the dozens of dissident references from my five papers on the topics. Particular names include Robert Carroll, Milo Wolff, David Bergman, Winston Bostick, Charles Yost et al at Electric Spacecraft Journal, John Keely, Viktor Schauberger, Nikola Tesla, Dale Ponds, Guy Obolensky, Francisco Muller, David French, Thomas G. Barnes, Ronald J. Kovac, Donald Reed.and some others I will regret in not calling immediately to mind. Most of these natural scientists are not represented on the web at this point in time. [See listings in my RAPRS ... above] - Millennium Twain (Jan'97)
Article 25 - A Theory of the Etherial Space of Newton and Einstein ... Henry H. Lindner
Article 26 - A Structured World of Liquid And Foamy Ether ... Peter C.M. Hahn
Before the Michaelson-Morely experiment, physicists pictured a space that was filled with a light transparent substance they called ether. Ether was used to explain how light, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation are transported through empty space. In 1887, Michaelson and Morely conducted an experiment to measure the earth's velocity through this ether. The experiment failed; no movement through ether could be detected. Since then, physicists reasoned that if no movement could be detected, then ether didn't exist. Gradually, the whole idea of ether's ability to explain anything, was finally given up and forgotten. Ether was then replaced by the vacuum of empty space.
A modified ether, with it's various states and structures, can still be used to describe the world as it is known today. Ether was the continuous fluid of space that all matter existed in. Except the old model had individual particles of matter existing in a separate sea of ether. The new ether model replaces conventional atomic particles with liquid ether droplets; and the vacuum of empty space is replaced with foamy ether. Now this is the key difference; there is no matter existing in ether - but matter is ether and so is space. That's it; the entire universe as we know it,is comprised of liquid and foamy ether.
Article 28 - KeelyNet - From an Art to a Science ... Jerry Decker
"They also found a frequency shift of 17 Hz at twice the table rotation rate, which they could not explain, dependent on direction of the
interferometer with respect to the lab. It is this effect which is predicted by an entrained ether theory. Brillet and Hall called it a
"persistent spurious signal."
And extracted from the work of Aspden (1981): "Interpreting the 17 Hz signal at the second harmonic of table rotation found by Brillet and Hall in relation to the laser
frequency 8.85 x 10^13 Hz we find the ratio 1.92 x 10^-13 and, as this is 0.131(v/c)^2, we find that v/c is 1.21 x 10^-6,
giving v as 363 m/s. If our theory is correct then, within the errors of measurement, this should be the west-east speed
of earth rotation at Boulder, Colorado. Being at 40 N, Boulder has, in fact, an earth rotation speed of 355 m/s."
Article 31 - Light, Atoms, Galaxies and Gravity ... John Sefton
Article 32 - Clerk Maxwell & The Nature of the Electromagnetic Field ... Albert Einstein
One further reason that this article has been included is due to the editor's contention that the nature of the aether and the nature of the Ocean of Light are closely related, for both represent holistic cosmic phenomena.
Bohm's holographic universe explains many puzzles. One is the effect consciousness seems to have on the subatomic world. Bohm rejects the idea that particles don't exist until they are observed. But he is not in principle against trying to bring consciousness and physics together. However, he thinks physicists are wrong to say that one separate thing, consciousness, interacts with another separate thing, the subatomic particle, because all such things are aspects of the holomovement, which personifies the physical aspect of our world.
Article 35 - Questioning EPR Experiments & Relativity - by Caroline Thompson
I am very much against the idea that understanding of the universe should be the prerogative of an elite. The evidence is that mathematics in fundamental physics is largly couterproductive - it only confuses, and encourages people to try for their PhDs by adding to the tangled web of self-sustaining intellectual fantasy, without gaining any deeper knowledge of the wonderful intricacy, fantastic forces that create and organise matter, with a continuous gradation from elementary fluctuations of some basic "phi" to galaxies, life, and our ability to wonder at all of this."
A recently available paper at this site, entitled Lorentz and the Aether covers much ground in the examination of the historical development and counter development of the concept of the aether, and in particular looks at the work and opinion of Lorentz in this area.
Article 36 - Casimir Effect Paradigm ... by Henry C. Warren Jr
In my suggested paradigm I have reluctantly gone more or less with the flow and speak of "space" and the fabric of or in space interchangeably. I sense possible similarities between the strings of some modern theories and the fluctuations of some Casimir type models and the aetherons of some ether based theories. With that and Einstein's 1920 lecture in mind, I periodically put ether in parenthesis after space, on the understanding that any theory which rejects action at a distance and assigns physical properties to space is an ether theory. Coming full circle, I reiterate that the precise nature of space (ether) has yet to be comprehended, at least by me and I doubt anyone else.
"Whereas special and general relativity are as yet not in alignment concerning
the Sagnac, Silvertooth, and Ampere force law experiments, the subquantum
kinetics (SQK) ether concept is supported by these experiments. The big bang
theory proposes the counterintuitive notion that the universe emerged out of
a state of nonexistence, however SQK avoids this problem, and proposes
that physical form emerged from a preexisting ether substrate. SQK explains
in detail how subatomic particles arise from subquantum fluctuations in the
ether. And while the philosophy of science is based on positivism, does not
recognize the existence of an unobservable spiritual realm and contradicts
mystical teachings, SQK derives from general systems principles, admits the
possibility of an unseen realm and harmonizes with mystical teachings."
Sourced from NEN, Vol. 5, No. 2, June 1997, Special Edition, p. 8., this article reviews a number of new approaches to the aether, such as the following example:
Sourced from NEN, Vol. 4, No. 8, December 1996, pp. 1-7, this article presents an in-depth review of the more recent scientific controversy surrounding aether theory. This narration surrounds discussion of the history of the development of the Adams Motor and the Adams-Aspden Patent, one of the more renown Over-Unity devices. The author - Dr. Harold Aspden (See Article 38 below), has also published a book entitled Aetheric Science Papers, and the following extract might serve as an introduction to this new area of research:
"If the aether delivers energy on loan to you and you use it to
run the motor as the poles come together but refuse to give it back, then
the aether has to replenish itself by taking power from its own vast
pool of energy activity. It merely ripples to find a new level of
equilibrium just as the sea will recover if you take a bucket of water
from it. Eventually, that energy borrowed finds its way back to
the aether as we spend it by generating heat radiation."
"You will be introduced to a limitless source of 'free energy' which
we can harness to meet our future energy needs without polluting our
planet. It is limitless because Nature conserves energy and if we use
the energy Nature feeds to us in a consumable form, Nature has a way
of recapturing that energy as we shed it and reprocessing it through
its sub-quantum underworld to feed it back into its original form.
Yes, you will learn to question what you read in contemporary textbooks
which say that there are man-made laws preventing Nature from working
in that way. But, as you learn, you will, I hope, become all the more
interested in what I have to say, because it affects your future and
the destiny of mankind."
- Dr. H. Aspden (1997)
Thus, the Universe is energy and its ingredients are the up-mentioned three kinds of energy. The evolution of the Universe is the process of conversion of one form of energy into another."
Article 42 - Simple Relativity: Deeper Questions & the Aetheric Ocean - Floyd Creasey
We can personally recognize this affect when we consider ourselves standing close to a passing truck. If we are very close, the wind associated with the passing truck is very strong. When we are some distance away from the passing truck, then the wind force is less strong.
The portion of the atmosphere around an airplane which is significantly affected by the passing aircraft, or tends to move along with the aircraft motion, is the source of the parasitic drag, and is referred to as the 'boundary layer' of air.
This boundary layer of air which tends to take on the currently existing velocity of the airplane contributes to the concept we call 'mass inertia' and attribute to the airplane rather than to the motion of the air surrounding that airplane.
I suggest that there is much more than just the boundary layer of air that is contributing to this concept of inertial resistance. The source of that additional factor lays with the 'aether' which, along with the atmosphere, is being disturbed as a result of the motion of the aircraft. - Floyd Creasey.
Article 43 - Radiant Pressure Model of Remote Forces - Stan Byers
Features of the theory include ...
- Stan Byers.
Article 44 - A Model of Matter in an Elastic Medium - Bjørn Karlsen
To represent matter in an elastic space, I will take point of departure in the fact that mass and energy are equivalent properties, and thus suppose that matter is a kind of energetic disturbances in the medium which is not allowed to disperse throughout the medium and die out. Confined energy of this kind will exert a pressure in the medium and will therefore displace a certain amount of medium matter, and I will suppose that the nature of matter can be linked to such confined energy and displacements. - Bjørn Ursin Karlsen (1998)
Article 45 - Aethro-Kinematics: Physics of the Third Millennium - Steven Rado
Aethro-Kinematics renders an alternate mechanical solution for the
polarization of light. Thus, it reinstates Faraday and
Maxwell's gaseous model of the Aether and resumes the original
task of exploring all 'action at a distance forces' as fluid
dynamical behavior of the all-pervading Aether. -- In Aethro-Kinematics,
Aether is taken as an all-pervading gas at an ultra-microscopic order
of magnitude. The constituents of this medium, the 'Aethrons', are in
constant random motion with perfectly elastic collisions, analogous to
the atoms of an ideal gas. -- This system obeys the simple laws of the
Kinetic Theory of Gases."
"The philosophical notion that the cosmos is filled by a superfine
gas, called Aether, originates from antiquity. Its mechanical version in
classical physics was introduced by Christian Huygens in order to
explain the transmission of light via compression waves, analogous
to the transmission of sound in air. In this form Aether became the
potential mediator of all mysterious 'action at a distance forces'
such as gravity, magnetism and electricity. In the nineteenth century,
the task of science seemed to be designing suitable fluid
dynamical models utilizing Aether to explain each of those mysterious
forces. Faraday and Maxwell nearly concluded this task with
respect to the mysteries of magnetism and electricity. -- Nevertheless,
one attempt to explain the polarization of light required the
transverse oscillation of the transmitting medium, which could
only be possible in a solid substance. This diversity in the models of
Aether became a crucial problem in theoretical physics. Finally,
at the turn of the twentieth century the Special Theory of Relativity
discarded the Aether altogether.
- Steven Rado
Article 46 - Derivation of Newtonian Gravitation from LeSage's Attenuation Concept - Barry Mingst & Paul Stowe
This same model rears up again in modern physics in the form of the mathematical topology of string/super string theory as well as in superconductivity and superfluidity. Penrose's twistor is a vortex ring, as is a magnetic field. It is interesting to note that vortex rings can sustain transverse vibrations (analogous to guitar string vibration), indeed Kelvin proved mathematically that linear disturbances in a saturated 3D vortex fluid (he termed a vortex sponge) would produce propagation of pure transverse waves identical to the equations and properties that describe the propagation of light through space. It was this relationship as well as many others that caused this hypothesis to be considered seriously. It also is interesting to note that Maxwell used this conceptual model as the basis for his derivation of the EM relationships." - Barry Mingst and Paul Stowe
An aether model based upon a degenerate Fermion fluid, composed primarily of electrons and positrons in a negative energy state relative to the null state or true vacuum, is proposed and its consequences are explored for physics and cosmology. The model provides both insight and quantitative results for a large number of phenomena for which conventional theory provides no answers or unsatisfactory answers. Among the concepts treated are: wave-particle duality, the nature of spin (a vortex in the aether), the derivation of Hubbles law; electric fields (polarization of the aether); Zitterbewegung (a bare particle orbiting within a vortex core); inflation in cosmology; the arrow of time; the Pauli exclusion principle (repulsion between parallel spin vortices); the nature of the photon (a region of rotating polarized aether propagating with a screw-like motion); neutrinos (a spin vortex with no particle in its core); redshifts; g-ray bursters; and a number of other topics. A key assumption is that the speed of light is the Fermi velocity of the degenerate electron-positron plasma that dominates the aether. As a consequence the speed of light decreases with time on the scale of the age of the universe.
Article 48 - Are There Aether Atoms? - Jack Martinelli
Article 49 - EVE ~ a model of the AETHER - Carlos Laborde
Article 50 - A New Approach to the Lorentz Transformations - Arlin J. Brown
Article 51 - Faraday's Lost Aether - L.W. Kruger
Editorial Commentary |
---|
Elsewhere on the web you will find other resource compilations which are concerned with the current status of Theories of Physics and the Cosmos in more general terms - such as the New and Alternative Theories of Physics WebSite maintained by Phil Gibbs, who also maintains the FAQ for sci.physics.
Today, practically all of the contemporary physics texts on the subject of space, time and the material structure of the cosmos are prefaced with an account of this "ancient belief". However, usually within a few short paragraphs, there is brought into play convincing justification to remove the idea in favour of a non-material mathematically derived quantum vacuum to which is attributed other markedly strange characteristics such as the Zero Point Field, or the fluctuating vacuum energy, or some other such permutation of design.
Despite this overwealming peer-reviewed state of affairs, there nevertheless exist, and have existed, individuals who have stated their disagreement with the contemporary theories of the physical sciences. Sometimes termed dissident, invariably termed "crack-pot", the scorn and derision of the status quo have not prevented these individuals to work away at their alternate theories concerning the nature of natural phenomena, here on earth and "out there", in the cosmos.
As the approach of the third millennium draws near, there has been a steady emergence of interdisciplinary scientific research and knowledge. Gradually it is being recognised that there exists, within many different aspects of, and on many different levels of natural phenomena, some form of systemic inter-connectedness. Examples of this include the work of Fritjof Capra in his writings - such as the "Tao of Physics" and "The Turning Point" , the developments of the "Gaia Theory" by the atmospheric chemist Dr. James Lovelock, and the successful acceptance of the Theory of Endosymbiosis by the (now) eminent microbioligist Dr Lynn Margulis. Further examples of this type of emergent thought might also be seen to be evident in the historical establishment of conferences formed in response to the first generic specifications Towards a Science of Consciousness.
Being a dedicated Oceanic Surfer, I am certainly one to be able to favour a more fluid - less particular and mechanistic - description of the cosmos. In fact, there is little doubt in my mind that the contemporary theories of the physical sciences are no more than fore-runners - stepping stones if you like - to a more general and unified system of thought which will have the potential of not only providing a holistic foundation for the interdisciplinary scientific fields, but will also extend the same platform for the disciplines which hitherto were classified under the "sub-directories" of the arts and social sciences.
It is for this reason that I have set forth to prepare this resource compilation. There exists no doubt in my mind that the sciences of the third millennium will draw more than what might be expected from the workings, theories and ideas presented in the index above. And if this thinking is correct, then the concept of the Aether will again be increasingly the subject of further research and contemplation, and the foundation for a new paradigm of cosmology and of life.
This resource is therefore dedicated to the research students - and in particular, those research students who see themselves to be the students of life.
Peace.
Theories of the Aether Scientific Theories of the Cosmic Aether
"Thus he then classified living creatures into genera and species, |
---|
- Xenocrates, On the life of Plato