Was Einstein correct ?"Aether exists because Electromagnetism requires it"?

Question

Einstein address may 1920=University of Leyden

in the same paper "According to General theory of Relativity Space without Aether is unthinkable" is that refering the Aether theory or spacetime?

Michelson & Morley did not really disprove the existence of the aether did they ?

Is there any explanation about Einstein?

Answer 1

No, there is no Aether... At least not with any of the properties that physicists in the 19th century imagined it should have.

But looking very closely at modern theories of dark matter and other weakly interacting particles, we may yet find that a concept of Aether wasn't that far off base!

-T

Answer 2

No, electromagnetism does not require an Aether. The Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the existence of the Aether by showing that no matter the orientation the Earth seemed always 'at rest' with the ether even though the Earth was continually orbiting the sun....changing its velocity with respect to the supposed ether. Einstein's theory of special relativity came along and proposed the idea that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames. So the ether plays no observable role and therefore is more likely not to exist at all.
Despite your personal reluctance to accept the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment, by far, the idea of an Aether has largely been abandoned along with an absolute reference frame in the universe.

Electromagnetic waves do not require a medium to propagate....they can self-propagate. A changing electric field generates a magnetic field. A changing magnetic field generates an electric field. The self-propagating process allows these EM waves (light) to travel in a vacuum.

Answer 3

No. There is no aether. One of the most important experiments of the 20th century (and actually late 19th century too) was the Michelson-Morley experiment, designed expressly to detect the presence of "the aether." The results were a conclusive no.

Electromagnetism propagates through a vacuum without any necessary medium. It's a different type of wave.