Re: Aether is the empty space in which the Universe sits

From: Paul Stowe (ps_at_acompletelyjunkaddress.net)
Date: 09/11/04 

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 04:09:06 GMT

On 9 Sep 2004 12:55:47 -0700, reany@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:

>Paul Stowe <ps@acompletelyjunkaddress.net> wrote in message news:<6q3vj0devpr16cr3u37mpa0g88e33smh9i@4ax.com>...
>> On 8 Sep 2004 11:51:00 -0700, reany@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Stowe <ps@acompletelyjunkaddress.net> wrote in message news:<k9fsj05chq44c7keq6lc0th0rtm7ivk7d4@4ax.com>...
>>>> On 7 Sep 2004 12:46:47 -0700, reany@asu.edu (Patrick Reany) wrote:
>>>>
>>
>> [Snip...]
>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Einstein told us in what sense he meant "ether." He meant merely a
>>>>> space-filling "thing,"
>
> I am going to snip out any of your reply, Paul, to me that went off
> topic. My reply to you concerned Einstein's view of ether. Your
> changing the topic to "real ether," "reality," or anything else is
> removed.

 Tuck tail between legs & go yike!, yike!, yike!... I WAS discussing
 Einstein's writings. You can't discriminate between his writings
 about history & the general topic...

>>>>
>>>> a.k.a. a 'physical medium'...
>
> You'll have to define precisely what you mean by 'physical medium'.

 Physical: " relating to the sciences dealing with mass and energy;
             especially physics"

   Medium: "an intervening substance through which
            signals/disturbances/forces can travel"

 Physical Medium: "a fundamental substance consisting of mass/energy
                   particulate parts in a state through which
                   signals/disturbances/forces can be propagated...":

>>>>
>>>>> but NOT a material or mechanical thing.
>>>>
>>>> Quote please. He does talk about the historical aspects. But where
>>>> does HE say this? He does say,
>>>>
>>>> "More careful reflection teaches us, however, that the
>>>> special theory of relativity DOES NOT compel us to deny
>>>> ether. We may assume the existence of an ether,; only
>>>> we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to
>>>> it, ..."
>>>
>>> I already explained. There are an infinite number of models of ether,
>
> Note that Einstein said "an ether." There are an infinite number (at
> least 15) one could freely invent.

 I hate to be the one to break the news to you, 15 is very far from
 'infinite'... I doubt VERY seriously you CAN describe 15 distinctive
 variations!

> The point is that the ether concept is NOT uniquely defined from
> experiment alone.

 Actually, it is. The uniquness is in the definition above. The
 aether's capacity to sustain 'field' of non-contact force properties...

>>> as a space-filling "thing." Maxwell's ether and Einstein's ether share
>>> that and an intersection of predictions, but not the same "metaphysics."
>>
>> And the essential difference in metaphysics is ...???
>
> You disobeyed me and refused to read "Physics and Reality," right?

 Try me! Ask for a quote from that section...

> Field is irreducible,

 No, Eintein said,

    " ...people gradually got used to the idea of regarding the
     'electromagnetic field' as the final irreducible constituent
      of physical reality. ..."

 Note the word 'people' and, 'gradually got used to the idea' is in
 the context (as I mentioned earlier) of discussing a brief HISTORY
 of the development of physics. I'm sorry that you cannot discriminate
 between historical context & general...

> for the last time,

 Yes, IT IS!!!

> to Einstein. If you are so thick-headed that you still don't get
> it, then I give up on you as a hopeless moron.

 Hmmm, a moron,

           "a person of subnormal intelligence"

 Ranking at 148 on the IQ scale, & 109 on the EQI scale you do have a
 very odd definition of 'moron' Hey, maybe you'll want to let the
 psychology gurus know that their Binet & Simon scale is all screwed up :)

> Irreducible means not reducible to anything else, including to matter.

 Irreducible is context specific dunce! The medium is irreducible
 in context of Continuum Mechanics. But, that doe NOT equate to
 there is no underpinning to CM.

> I'll try to give you one more example of the diference between matter
> and field, according to Einstein. according to Einstein according to
> Einstein according to Einstein according to Einstein according to
> Einstein according to Einstein!!!!!
>
> From Infeld's book _Quest_ (p. 255-257), we read Infeld's account of
> the lecture Einstein gave him at their first meeting in 1936 at
> Princeton:
>
> There are two fundamental concepts in the development
> of physics: _field_ and _matter_. The old physics which
> developed from Galileo and Newton, up to the middle of
> the nineteenth century, is a physics of matter. The old
> mechanical point of view is based upon the belief that
> we can explain all phenomena in nature by assuming particles
> and simple forces acting among them....For the physicists
> of the nineteenth century, to explain meant to form a
> mechanical picture from which the phenomena could be deduced.
>
> That was the rise of the mechanical view. Next came its eventual
> decline:
>
> Through slow, painful struggle and progress the mechanical
> view broke down. It became apparent that the simple concepts
> of particles and forces are not sufficient to explain all
> phenomena of nature. As so often happens in physics, in
> the time of need and doubt, a great new idea was born: that
> of the field.....The transition from particle physics to field
> physics is undoubtedly one of the greatest, and, as Einstein
> believes, _the_ greatest step accomplished in the history
> of human thought.

 Yeah, and the Field is the seat of 'Potential Energy'. Hmmm, we
 have temperature 'fields', pressure 'fields', electric 'fields',
 ... etc. Yes, the 'field' concept IS very useful. So?

> FYI, Einstein was not only NOT interested in treating fields as
> reducible to material particles, he was actually interested in
> reducing particles to accumulation points in fields.

 Define a 'matter particle' does a 'matter particle' have an
 inherent, 'irreducible' inertia?
 
>> Define mechanics...
>
> Since I always define the terms I use which are not primitive, that
> makes me about the only one who'll do so here. You rarely do. You only
> pretend to know what you mean by the words you use.
>
> Mechanics is that study in physics that has four irreducible elements
> in it by which phenomena are accounted for:
>
> 1) point mass particle,
> 2) inertial frame,
> 3) forces acting at a distance, and
> 4) absolute acceleration space (which is related to the
> inertial frame in a specific way).

 So far, so good...

> That by itself is just a framework. At least one specific force law
> must be given to have a theory of mechanics. For more on this, see
> pp299-300 and
>
> The first attempt to lay a uniform theoretical foundation
> was the work of Newton. In his system everything is reduced
> to the following concepts:
>
> (1) Mass points with invariable mass;
> (2) action at a distance between any pair of mass points;
> (3) law of motion for the mass point.
> --- Einstein, THE FUNDAMENTS OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS,
> Ideas and Opinions, p.325
>
> The emancipation of the field concept from the assumption of
> its association with a mechanical carrier finds a place among
> the psychologically most interesting events in the development
> of physical thought. During the second half of the nineteenth
> century, in connection with the researches of Faraday and
> Maxwell, it became more and more clear that the description
> of electromagnetic processes in terms of field was vastly
> superior to a treatment on the basis of the mechanical concepts
> of material points. By the introduction of the field concept in
> electrodynamics, Maxwell succeeded in predicting the existence
> of electromagnetic waves, ...

 Ummm, actually it can be shown & proven that this is totally incorrect.
 Maxwell predicted the EM wave SPECFICALLY FROM the physical medium
 model using both mass density AND elastic modulus. As to #2 above, in
 ay physical medium the is NO action at a distance nor instantaneous
 transmissions.

> the essential identity of which with light waves could not
> be doubted, if only because of the equality of their velocity
> of propagation. As a result of this, optics was, in principle,
> absorbed by electrodynamics. One psychological effect of this
> immense success was that the field concept gradually won
> greater independence from the mechanistic framework of
> classical physics.
> --- Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Relativity and the Problem
> of Space, p. 368.
>
> Since the special theory of relativity revealed the physical
> equivalence of all inertial systems, it proved the
> untenability of the hypothesis of an ether at rest.

 Actually, as we know now, it didn't...

> It was therefore necessary to renounce the idea that the
> electromagnetic field is to be regarded as a state of a
> material carrier. The field thus becomes an irreducible
> element of physical description, irreducible in the same
> sense as the concept of matter in the theory of Newton.
> --- Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Relativity and the Problem
> of Space, p. 371.
>
>
> There seems to be only one way out of all these
> difficulties. In the attempt to understand the phenomena
> of nature from the MECHANICAL POINT OF VIEW,
> throughout the whole development of science up to the
> twentieth century, it was necessary to introduce artificial
> substances like electric and magnetic fluids, light corpuscles,
> or ether. The result was merely the concentration of all
> the difficulties in a few essential points, such as ether
> in the case of optical phenomena. Here all the fruitless
> attempts to CONSTRUCT AN ETHER in some simple way,
> as well as the other objections, seem to indicate that the
> fault lies in the fundamental assumption that it is possible to
> explain all events in nature from a MECHANICAL
> POINT OF VIEW. Science did not succeed in carrying
> out the MECHANICAL PROGRAM convincingly,
> and today no physicist believes in the possibility of its
> fulfillment.
> [Found in: The Evolution of Physics, p. 120-121. emphasis mine.]
>
>>> And go get Einstein's book Ideas and Opinions and read his essay "Physics
>>> and Reality." Then come back and you can talk intelligently for A CHANGE.
>>
>> Just did, and your point is what?
>
> Read it again! It didn't sink in much. You didn't know what mechanics
> is from it.

 I know DAMNED WELL what mechanics is.

     Mechanics: "the branch of physics concerned with the motion
                 of bodies in a frame of reference"

 Nowhere does does mechanics come into conflict with the concept of field.
 
>> Nature determines what's in or out, we just get to try to understand it...
>
> We're not talking about Nature; we're talking about what the concept
> of "ether" meant to Einstein, or have you forgotten already?

 No, but, unfortunately, just like most things, we ARE discussing intepretations
 of written phrases.

> [snip]
>>
>> > ... In addition to the mass point and its motion, there arose according
>> > to Faraday's concept a new kind of physical reality, namely, the "field."
>>
>> Please reference me to where Faraday suggested a 'field'. In fact,
>> Faraday advocated 'lines of force' known today to be perfectly analogous
>> to fluidic streamlines...
>
> Again, unless you're willing to reduce lines of force to matter,
> you're talking about what came to be called "field."

 Is the concept of fluidic stream-lines 'matter'? They are made up OF
 matter but their essence ISN'T matter. Is the 'flow' of water in a
 pipe JUST matter? If so, why is different that stationary water?

>> Sorry Patrick, Einstein was just a man, not God, his words are NOT
> inviolate. But what I'm discussing IS the physical charactertistics
>> of that space-filling thing which, amazingly, has all the same
> characteristics of a medium. That WAS Einstein's point.
>
> I don't give a damn what you're trying to morph the topic into.

 Hey, I'll bet most readers of the referenced 1920 paper interpret it
 differently than you. BUT, as is to be expected, you're right and
 everybody else thus, must be wrong :)

> I'm only talking about what Einstein thought about ether, whether
> he was right or wrong historically about Faraday. But don't easily
> think he was wrong about such things.

 Great the cull the archives and show a actual refernce FROM Faraday
 that said he thought of his lines of force as just a/the 'field'.

> [snip]
>>
>>> people gradually got used to the idea of regarding the "electromagnetic
>>> field" as the final irreducible constituent of physical reality.
>>
>> They settled for a placeholder in the absence of sufficent knowledge.
>> That's fine as long as one realizes and remembers this fact.
>
> Well, that's my point about what Einstein did. Period. Whether he was
> right or wrong to do so in your eyes.

 He's talking past tense or didn't you notice?
 
>>> We have H. Hertz to thank for definitely freeing the concept of the
>>> field from all encumbrances derived from the conceptual armory of
>>> mechanics, ...
>>
>> I'd say we have Hertz to BLAME...
>
> Bingo!

 Great, then you agree that this is a historical lecture, not general.
 
>>> ... and H. A. Lorentz for freeing it from a material substratum;
>
> Bingo!
>
> [snip]
>>
>>>--- In: THE MECHANICS OF NEWTON AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT
>>>OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS, Ideas and Opinions, p 259.
>>>
>>> Einstein had early on rejected mechanics as a basis for all of physics!
>
> [snip]
>>
>> I agree with Einstein's observation on the aether,
>>
>> "But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the
>> quality characteristic of ponderable matter, as consisting
>> of parts which may be tracked through time."
>>
>> The aether is not, nor was it ever, 'Ponderable Matter'!
>
> Then what is it? Matter?

 It is physical medium having particulate entities that have momentum/energy
 and self interact. That self interaction gives rise to states identified as,

 - Ponderable Matter (having the intrinsic EM property of inertia)
 - the Electric potential
 - Magentic Potential
 - Gravitational Potential
 - Nuclear (Strong) Potential
  
> ... Field?

 Fields are what we have identified as specific states & properties of
 the medium. Thus Einstein's whole point of the 1920 paper...

> Something else? That's the damn point Einstein made in the evolution
> of physics. You have ONLY those TWO choices, so which is it?

 I just gave you a third...
 
>>>> Which, by definition, IS Maxwell & Lorentz's aether... Note where hes
>>>> says, "were modelled on the Maxwell-Lorentz theory".
>>>
>>> What are you talking about?
>>
>> If you 'extend' someone else's model you, by definition inherit the
>> 'base class' model.
>
> Einstein did NOT "extend" (i.e., generalize) Maxwell-Lorentz theory.
> He adapted it to his own personal formal (relativistic) point of view.
> I keep telling you that.

 One can indeed 'adapt' a base class for their own use. That's the
 whole point of a Base-Class. But you STILL INHERIT the base class
 as formulated.

>[snip]
>
>> Yup, just like the 'field' concept WAS developed as a placeholder to
>> do exactly the same for the physical medium.
>
> Field is NOT matter, in Einstein's formal point of view. To Einstein
> field is irreducible. Period!!!

 The field 'concept', like CM is by its definition, irreducible. But
 that says NOTHING about physics, just them thar concepts that you so
 'freely' like to invent :)

>[snip]
>>
>>> From "Physics and Reality," 1936, p. 302:
>>>
>>> A second method of application of mechanics, which
>>> avoids the consideration of a subdivision of matter
>>> down to "real" material points, is the mechanics of
>>> so-called continuous media. This mechanics is
>>> characterized by the fiction that the density and the
>>> velocity of matter depend continuously upon coordinates
>>> and time, and that the part of the interactions not
>>> explicitly given can be considered as surface forces
>>> (pressure forces) which again are continuous functions
>>> of position. Herein we find the hydrodynamic theory,
>>> and the theory of elasticity of solid bodies. These
>>> theories avoid the explicit introduction of material
>>> points by fictions which, in the light of the foundation
>>> of classical mechanics, can only have an approximate
>>> significance.
>>
>> Just like modernists avoid the explicit introduction of the
>> aetherial medium by fictions (Fields) which, in light of
>> the foundation of kinetic theory, can only have an approximate
>> significance... :)
>
> I call your aetherial medium just as big a fiction!

 Not as big as your field :)

>> Thus these cannot properly account for the granularity that
>> underpins all continuum models. Take you level of investigations
>> to small enough scales (regions) and your field approximation
>> goes to ***.
>
> Once again, you've gone off topic. All I'm interested in is how
> Einstein viewed ether.

 So, do you then reject the Quantum view???

 Paul Stowe