On 6/2/2011 7:45 PM, D. Peter Maus wrote:

...
You know, John...in the 18th century, this thinking would be considered
visionary.

But today, with General Relativity, String Theory, and a pretty good
running start at a Grand Unified Theory, it's a little behind the times.
Like Newtonian mechanics. Good for it's time. But in a universe of
speeds that may be expressed as an appreciable fraction of C, not really
all that precise. As described by Lorenz. And demonstrated at Princeton.

The theory of ether was rather undone by Michelson and Morely in 1887,
when they devised an experiment to detect the ether wind with negative
results.

The notion of a universally distributed inter-matter substance called
ether has been replaced with the thinking that aether is a property of
space, which Einstein demostrated through General Relativity was not
only subject to bending, distortion and curvature, but was also finite
without edge, curving back on itself, not unlike a Moebius band.
Creating a universe in which travel in a single direction of sufficient
duration will result in a return to the origin. Put another way, if you
had a telescope large enough, if you looked in any direction long
enough, eventually, you'd see the back of your own head.



Let me "more blunt." I am saying nothing, other than repeating
Einstein, I just choose words to emphasize his meaning. Perhaps we
don't agree on what he has said?:

"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of
relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense,
therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of
relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there
not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of
existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks),
nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this
ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic
of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through
time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it."

He is the one placing the importance on the ether, the "standards" ARE
the structure of our world and universe ...

He even stipulated this!:

"Therefore, instead of speaking of an ether, one could equally well
speak of physical qualities of space. Now one could take the position
that all physical objects fall under this category, because in the final
analysis in a theory of fields the ponderable matter, or the elementary
particles that constitute matter, also have to be considered as ‘fields’
of a particular kind, or as particular ‘states’ of the space."

If you think I am attempting to represent myself as a "visionary", you
are sadly mistaken, I meant no such thing. Read the masters words
c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y!

Anyway, others fight with the meaning of all this he
http://www.space-matters.info/newstuff.html

History repeats itself, on USENET?

Regards,
JS