[TheForge] YAK relativity- WAY OT, or not...

Wed Jan 7 16:01:05 2004

Actually I don't think Einstein was a player in determining that the
speed of light is a constant.  I believe that experimental result was
obtained before Einstein sat down to try to work it into the framework
of physics, resulting in the Special Theory of Relativity.  

Furthermore, I'm reasonably sure that nothing that Einstein did in any
way disproved the existence of "the aether".  (This was an important
point to me when I was reviewing my physics a year or so ago, as it
pertained to some speculations that Stephen Wolfram had made which, to
my mind, postulated something equivalent to the aether.)  

Rather, modern physics rejects the concept of the aether on the basis
of Occam's Razor.  Since an aether isn't needed for the propagation of
electromagnetic radiation, then there is no reason to assume that there
is an aether.  

The aether was first hypothesized to answer the "what is waving"
question.  Sound is carried by air.  Water waves are carried by water
(or rather, the water-air interface).  What carries electromagnetic
radiation?  My understanding it that electromagnetic radiation is
analogous to a swinging pendulum.  Start with the pendulum up, it has
potential energy.  Release it and it gains kinetic energy till it
reaches the bottom of the swing at which point it has no remaining
potential energy and maximum kinetic energy.  The kinetic energy then
carries the pendulum back up the other side, regaining potential energy
with the loss of kinetic.

Electromagnetic radiation (light) has energy stored in either a
magnetic field or in an electric field.  Start with all the energy in an
electric field.  As this field collapses, a magnetic field is generated
till all the energy is in the form of a magnetic field.  Now the
magnetic field collapses, regenerating the electric field.  

Hence, light is self-propagating, and needs not aether to carry it.

BTW, who says the "expanding universe" HAS a border?

The problem with this discussion is that it is impossible to
distinguish those who know what their talking about from those who
don't.  Hell, it's hard to do that sometimes when the topic is
blacksmithing!  I am trying to contribute only when I'm fairly certain I
know what I'm talking about.  I don't object to speculation, but I can't
always distinguish speculation from fact when the subject is so far from
my own knowledge base.

Bruce
NJ

>>> [email protected] 1/7/2004 2:49:54 PM >>>

> Heres one that will really mess with your noggin...
>
> http://www.mountainman.com.au/aether.html

Ah yes, the [a]ether theories.  I personally believe them and am
baffeled by
modern science saying that there is no ether.  (For those unfamilar,
basically: air is to sound as light is to ether.)  The _only_ reason
why
science shuns this idea is because someone proved that light couldn't
be
traveling through a medium because its speed never changed even if the
source was moving, unlike sound and all other medium based waves. 
Then
Einstein showed that the speed of light (in a vaccum) is constant. 
Although
this makes the anti-ether proof meaningless, people still hold that
belief.
The existence of the ether is proved very simply (but unscientificly). 
If
the ether exists, that's what space is.  If it doesn't, then what is
space?
If it's nothing (as it would have to be), how could the universe have
a
border / be expanding?  There must be some difference between space and
not
space, but without the ether, there isn't.

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