by Colin Fisher
A friend of mine used to claim that a boring speaker had “ether lips.” That is, the talk put one to sleep. Of course, ether here means ethyl ether, a common anesthetic.
This article is about aether, or ether. The Greek Classical Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Aether) date from pre-Socratic times (Empedocles). The philosopher, Aristotle, added aether as the quintessence. He reasoned that whereas fire, earth, air and water were earthly and corruptible since no changes had been perceived in the heavenly regions, the stars cannot be made of any the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance.
The nascent, Roman church adopted the metaphysics of Aristotle as an official position of the Church. Therefore, the concept of ether persisted throughout the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance. As science flowered in the late 1800’s, ether was a problem. Ether had been assumed to be fixed in space and, as heavenly bodies and light moved through it, the ether was thought to be undisturbed.
These ideas were tested in 1887 in an experiment, famous in the annals of physics, by two Americans: Michelson and Morley. In this experiment a beam of light was split and reflected so that the resulting two beams of light were perpendicular to each other. When the light was further reflected so that the beams of light came together, it was expected that there would be an observable, interference pattern if the two beams were out of phase (meaning one beam of light took a longer path than did the other). The apparatus could be rotated so that on beam of light would be moving in the direction of the Earth (rushing through the ether) and the other would remain perpendicular to it. The experiment demonstrated that there was no interference between the beams of light, regardless of the rotation of the apparatus. The investigators concluded that the only possible conclusion was that there was no ether.
This result led to an assertion by Fitzgerald (in 1893) that the apparatus of Michelson-Morley had changed dimensions owing to the motion of the Earth through the ether by just the right amount for the results observed. This resulted in considerable discussion by the scientific community; but, in time Fitzgerald’s idea was discredited. Meanwhile, Lorentz was trying to develop a consistent electromagnetic theory of the electron. Lorentz found that the analysis developed by Fitzgerald was just what he needed to complete his theory which proclaimed that an electron’s mass increases with its velocity.
Giants may stand upon the shoulders of giants. Along came Albert! Einstein now had what he needed to develop and support his Special Theory of Relativity. This theory is based upon two postulates: 1) The laws of physics are the same when stated in terms of either of two reference systems moving at a constant velocity relative to each other; and, 2) The velocity of light in free space is the same for all observers, and is independent of the relative velocity of the source of light and the observer. The relativity theory does not overthrow the classical theory; but, extends and modifies it. Also, from the Special Theory, one may derive the relationship between mass and energy, important in the application of nuclear energy.
When the Church Fathers congregated in Anatolia at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, they had no idea that they would be saddling European societies with some troublesome concepts for at least 1600 years when they adopted the metaphysics of Aristotle. It will be more difficult to refute the concepts of Heaven and Hell that Aristotle inherited from the Pythagoreans.
© Colin Fisher 2009
This entry was posted by cfisher on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Science Stuff.
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