Why an ether/aether?

[altonhare]

That would be the simple way of defining it. The more complex way would be that the vibrating objects are created by a wave flowing out of the fabric of the universe that causes a standing wave which acts like a rapidly expanding and contracting object.

This would be one of many theories I have, just one of my more recent ideas. I don't see anything wrong with having many theories as each of them usually have part of the truth but not all of it, its just figuring out what part is true and what isn't

So we have an object vibrating back and forth created BY a wave? But you just said the vibrating/expanding/contracting object IS the wave! Which is it?

What's "the fabric of the universe" and how does it create a "wave", whatever that is (since it's not the vibrating or alternating expanding/contracting of an object).

"Acts LIKE a rapidly expanding and contracting object" Ahh, so that was just an analogy. It's not what a standing wave actually is. What is it really?

[Drethon]

So we have an object vibrating back and forth created BY a wave? But you just said the vibrating/expanding/contracting object IS the wave! Which is it?

What's "the fabric of the universe" and how does it create a "wave", whatever that is (since it's not the vibrating or alternating expanding/contracting of an object).

"Acts LIKE a rapidly expanding and contracting object" Ahh, so that was just an analogy. It's not what a standing wave actually is. What is it really?

The standing wave is like the subatomic particles in the standard theories or the threads in your theories. I have no idea what it is, how we could measure it and know that any existing measurements are pretty questionable.

[altonhare]

So we have an object vibrating back and forth created BY a wave? But you just said the vibrating/expanding/contracting object IS the wave! Which is it?

What's "the fabric of the universe" and how does it create a "wave", whatever that is (since it's not the vibrating or alternating expanding/contracting of an object).

"Acts LIKE a rapidly expanding and contracting object" Ahh, so that was just an analogy. It's not what a standing wave actually is. What is it really?

The standing wave is like the subatomic particles in the standard theories or the threads in your theories. I have no idea what it is, how we could measure it and know that any existing measurements are pretty questionable.

No, the threads in "thread theory" are not a standing wave. They are three dimensional physical objects. They are not mathematical constructs. The Standard Model is a joke in physics because there's nothing physical at all about it. It's a game of "match the experiment". If they can get all the equations to come out they're happy with that. They model the entire universe with discrete, finite particles but the only interaction two particles can have is push (collision). Physics is about the interaction of three dimensional objects. We don't measure a standing wave. We correlate data with a mathematical function and call it a standing wave. A standing wave is entirely nonphysical, it's a convenient mathematical concept because we can plug in numbers and spit out the right numbers. The only way to simulate/model PULL is with extended objects like ropes. The only way to keep two objects (such as particles) from bouncing off each other and never meeting again is a connection, like a chain or rope. Pull is a *convergent* force whereas push is a *divergent* force.

http://www.youstupidrelativist.com

[Drethon]

I don't mean they are the same thing I mean they are the same in the respect that if any of them exist, we have no way right now to observe, measure (directly) or quantify them.

[altonhare]

I don't mean they are the same thing I mean they are the same in the respect that if any of them exist, we have no way right now to observe, measure (directly) or quantify them.

The rope is an actual 3-D object. Its features reproduce every observed phenomenon of light that I know of. It is the best physical hypothesis to date.

They are not the same thing. A standing wave is a graph or an equation relating to measurable parameters. What is the actual physical object or objects the standing wave is attempting to describe? How does the interaction of these objects result in the observed behavior? What is physically happening in the experiment that is being correlated with the standing wave mathematical function?

[Drethon]

The rope may be an actual 3D object but its still a representation of a theory, not a direct observation.

Standing waves can be observed in water: http://www.danmirahorian.ro/waterwriting.gif http://blazelabs.com/.%5Cpics%5Cwater_osc.gif. These are all 2D but that's because they are done in gravity, I suspect in free fall a 3D structure could be created.

[altonhare]

The rope may be an actual 3D object but its still a representation of a theory, not a direct observation.

Standing waves can be observed in water: http://www.danmirahorian.ro/waterwriting.gif http://blazelabs.com/.%5Cpics%5Cwater_osc.gif. These are all 2D but that's because they are done in gravity, I suspect in free fall a 3D structure could be created.

They are a physical representation however, not a mathematical one. The last valid physical hypothesis was Newton's corpuscle and it may be one of the most debunked physical hypotheses in physics.

[Grey Cloud]

Drethon,
Was the standing wave link you lost http://www.spaceandmotion.com by any chance?

[Why wont this damned forum software work properly on Server 2003? Aaaargh!]

[Plasmatic]

Say GC ,every time ive been to that site I think of you.

[Drethon]

Drethon,
Was the standing wave link you lost http://www.spaceandmotion.com by any chance?

[Why wont this damned forum software work properly on Server 2003? Aaaargh!]

Looks like the right topic but no, the one I was looking at was a VB(?) programmer that developed simulations that showed the standing waves.

[edit] Ah here it is http://www.glafreniere.com/sa_spherical.htm. Found an image I recognized on google image search.

[altonhare]

I smoked some pot this morning and checked out that link, boy it was trippy.

But seriously. The "spherical standing wave" you showed is just a bunch of colors on a screen alternating their shades. What is the physical significance?

[altonhare]

The answer is that there is no physical significance, it's just a pretty picture. Maybe the colors correspond to increasing/decreasing values in some equation. So it is basically a plot just like if I plotted y=m*x+b, although it admittedly is more complex.

There is no need for an aether, it is entirely superfluous. The scientific community needs to discard this old invalid hypothesis and start analyzing problems in terms of physical interconnectivity. If everything is connected there is no need for an aether medium, everything can influence everything else in some way. This hypothesis is far superior because we can develop causal physical mechanisms instead of just correlating observations with experiments.

[Divinity]

I don't know if this helps:

Aether concept

It is important to undertand that Tesla's Aether concept is not analogous to classical aether theories. Tesla's aether was in fact a medium, or 'perfect fluid' that wets everything in which we are immersed, acting as an 'independent carrier'. It behaves as a solid to light (high frequency) and is transparent to matter, while it's effects, according to Tesla, can be felt through inertia.

http://www.plasmacosmology.net/tesla.html

----------------

How can I prove aether exists? The only other alternative offered is empty space or the vacuum. How, therefore, could two particles become entangled (or waves even) if there is nothing between them? Only through direct superluminal communication between the two, which is possible I suppose. BUT I believe such communication can only occur via electrical means: i.e. the information travels instantly between any two points in the universe through the media, as described by Tesla above.

This is my intuition speaking, Alton.

[Grey Cloud]

Divinity quoted

Aether concept

It is important to undertand that Tesla's Aether concept is not analogous to classical aether theories. Tesla's aether was in fact a medium, or 'perfect fluid' that wets everything in which we are immersed, acting as an 'independent carrier'. It behaves as a solid to light (high frequency) and is transparent to matter, while it's effects, according to Tesla, can be felt through inertia.

I'm guessing that the author meant 'classical' as in classical scientific theory rather than in the sense of, say, classical Greece. Otherwise he's dead wrong as that is an excellent description of the aether of the ancients.
The original aether is thinner than the thinnest thing on Thin Street in Thintown. It permeates anything and everything. It is 'fiery aether' because it is spirit. The World Ocean; Okeanos; Dao; the waters of the firmament. Remember:

Four

Tao is hollow emptiness.

The substance of All,
it is absent of substance.
Dimensionless Void,
it is the source of the ten thousand things.

It blunts sharpness,
unravels entanglements,
diffuses brightness,
merges with dust.

Dark, invisible, it only seems to be.
It is the child of No-Thing
and the father of God.

Forty

Tao moves by returning and acts by yielding.
Thus, the ten thousand things arise into being.

Being arises from non-being.
Things arise from no-thing.

I Ching, Bart Marshall trans.

[altonhare]

It doesn't matter what word you use, what matters is the nature of that which you are using this word to refer to. Traditionally this word has been used to refer to either A) Invalid/contradictory hypothesis or B) A rehashing of the corpuscular hypothesis.

The author at the site describes the aether thus:

In order to keep things simple, one should postulate that the aether is perfectly homogeneous and that it preserves energy without any loss. Then it would transmit sinusoidal waves whose speed c is constant.

The keyword here is "homogeneous". The common definition(s):

homogeneous:
1. composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind
2. of the same kind or nature; essentially alike.

The first definition refers to a collection of objects (parts or elements). If the aether is just a collection of identical objects then it is just a bunch of discrete particles, unless these objects are physically connected (which has not been stated). Particles just bounce off each other (diverge). There is no such thing as the force of pull with discrete particles. The aether hypothesis has never stated that objects are physically connected.

The other way "aether" has been used is as a "continuous medium". A continuous object, however, cannot deform. If it's continuous there is nowhere within it for anything to move! This is the invalid hypothesis (because it proposes something that cannot deform can deform).

This is why the aether hypothesis is dead. We need a new hypothesis, a rope/chain hypothesis in which every object in the universe is physically connected to every other object. This explains physically why light travels rectilinear and why bodies appear to attract each other "at a distance" (gravitation).

The author sums up the problem with the aether hypothesis:

This site does not explain how the aether works mechanically.

By "mechanically" he means "physically". The aether is a nonphysical hypothesis. All the author has done in this article is say "there must be some way for light to propagate, you cannot have a wave without something waving". This is not a hypothesis! It's repeating the definition of a wave! A wave is *defined* as something moving in a particular manner.

The chain-rope hypothesis solves this problem by actually posing a new physical mechanism beyond the particle. The traditional aether is dead.