what is eather?

Question

ETHER
Current mood: grateful
Category: Religion and Philosophy


THE EATHER OF SPACE

Eather of space probley from I burn,

a material substance of more suitable kinds than visible bodies, supposed to exist in those parts of space which are apparently empty.: so thus begins the article "Ether" written for the ninth edition of the encyclopedia Britannica by James Clark Maxwell. The derivation seems to indicate some connexion in the mens minds with the idea of fire: the other three elements earth Water Air representing solid, liquid and gaseous conditions of ordinary matter respectively. The name Ether suggests a far more subtle or penetrating and ultra material kind of substance.

Newton explains the term for the medium which fills space - not only space which appears to be empty, but space also which appears to be full; for the luminiferous ether must undoubtedly pebetrate between the atoms - must exist in the pores so to speak - of every transparent substance, else light could not travel through it.

Answer 1

Okay, ether was a theoretical substance that was thought to fill space before we discovered space was a vacuum. What gets confusing is that there are a real set of gasses called "ethers" that were used in medicine as an anesthetic before modern opiate based ones were developed. For example ethoxyethane.

Answer 2

Ether does not exist.
Ether was the hypothetical structure or substance of three dimensional space that was thought to be the thing that was waving because light was thought to be a wave phenomenon. (lumeniferous ether)
An experiment conducted in 1887 by Michealson and Morley suggested that it did not exist.
Einstein's theory of relativity is the best explanation of the experimental results.
It radically altered the concepts of space and time and became the demarcation between Classical physics and Modern physics.
If you study it properly then be prepared to change some of your assumptions about the universe we live in as it can be quite counter-intuitive.

Answer 3

At one time scientists thought that light had to have something to wave through, they thought that space was like a vacuum through which light could not wave. They proposed that a solid substance must exist in which the planets and other bodies could move through with no resistance or friction, they called this substance, ' Aether.' Experiments proved that this Aether did not exist and light could behave as a particle.

Answer 4

The Eather