Questions tagged [aether]
Aether (or ether) relates to the material which supposedly fills the entire universe. It is a concept used to understand action at a distance. Aether was described by Huygens as an "omnipresent, perfectly elastic medium having zero density", to support his wave theory of light.
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Why don't electromagnetic waves require a medium?
As I understand it, electromagnetic waves have two components which are the result of each other, i.e., when a moving electric charge creates a changing magnetic field at point X then a changing ...
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In what medium are non-mechanical waves a disturbance? The aether?
The most basic and simple definition of a wave is that it is a disturbance in a medium. Then what are non-mechanical waves disturbance in? The aether? Please explain to me this question in detail as ...
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How do electromagnetic waves travel in a vacuum?
This is perhaps a total newbie question, and I will try to formulate it the best I can, so here it goes. How does an electromagnetic wave travel through for example, the vacuum of space?
I usually ...
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About the Ether Theory acceptance
Why was the Ether Theory refused by Modern Physics? If you please explain me, I just wanted to understand it more.
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What is light, and how can it travel in a vacuum forever in all directions at once without a medium?
I know there are many questions that are similar (maybe identical?). I am not a physicist nor a student - I am just interested in physics and have been watching many physics channels on youtube ...
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Isn't the aether existent?
Before you say I'm wrong consider this, Einstein is supposedly the first person to get completely get rid of the various aether models that were proposed. But didn't Einstein actually prove them right ...
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Did Einstein know about the Michelson-Morley experiment?
The second postulate of special relativity deals with constancy of light in inertial reference frames. But, how did Einstein come to this conclusion? Did he know about the Michelson-Morley experiment?
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Isn't D'Alembert's wave equation enough to see that Galilean transformations are wrong?
The D'Alembert equation for mechanical waves was written in 1750:
$$\frac{\partial^2u}{\partial x^2}=\dfrac{1}{v^2}\dfrac{\partial^2u}{\partial t^2}$$
(in 1D, $v$ being the propagation speed of the ...
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Displacement current - how to think of it
What is a good way to think of the displacement current? Maxwell imagined it as being movements in the aether, small changed of electric field producing magnetic field. I don't even understand that ...
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Why is the Luminiferous aether theory wrong? [closed]
I saw on this page about the constant speed of light that there are two ways of interpreting this constant speed:
General relativity
The Luminiferous aether theory
I understand why the theory of ...
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What does a Galilean transformation of Maxwell's equations look like?
In the 1860's Maxwell formulated what are now called Maxwell's equation, and he found that they lead to a remarkable conclusion: the existence of electromagnetic waves that propagate at a speed $c$, ...
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Why is it said that light can travel through empty space?
Here are a few commonly heard sentences that will make my question clear:
Statements #1
“The Michelson Morley experiment once and for all did away with the ether or the idea that light needs a medium ...
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A vertical variation of modern versions of Michelson-Morley
For almost a year now, I have been in the uncomfortable position of having an idea.
However, there is one nice thing about this idea. It makes a concrete, exact and relatively easy to test physical ...
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The Higgs field a new Luminiferous aether?
As of this writing it has been made clear to me that classical physics' Luminiferous aether was a terriblly poor discriptor of space. With the advent of Special Relativity and General Relativity, that ...
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How did we disprove aether wind?
We know that the universe is not vacuum. The average temperature of the universe is 3° above absolute zero. So some "aether" really exists, but that is not some gas with very low density, but stardust....
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