They did really know what they were looking for when they tested the aether?
2006-08-05 00:25:59 · 3 answers · asked by goring 6 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
This is a great question. We all scoff heartily at those primitive punks, thinking there's this Aether all over the place! Ha ha ha...
So we got advanced and clever!! Brilliant.
Er, except we can't find about 85% of the matter the universe should contain...
So we call it "dark matter". Way better than Aether, no?
2006-08-05 00:59:15 · answer #1 · answered by OraclewannaB 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Physics is the science of describing what is around us and formulating rules with "predictavie" value (ie rules that allow us to look at a circumstance and predict wih some reliability what will happen next.)
Democritus approached the Universe from a pre-relativity "common sense" standpoint that inferred a fixed 'grid' or aether as it were, against which everything happened. This was a natural "human" perception, and was a function of the scale we perceive things on. All classical physics works within this realm. It is only on much smaller or much larger scales that it all starts to fall apart!
2006-08-05 07:34:35 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the aether was the idea that their must be something at all points in "space" for matter to move in. this as we now know is not the case, we have replaced the idea of the aether with the concept of space(which i suppose could be considered the "new" aether)
the problem was that they were looking for something when they should have tried to prove nothing.
2006-08-05 07:37:38 · answer #3 · answered by thanos 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋