Did Einstein Believe in the Aether? Deciphering the Controversial Claims

[selfAdjoint]

So, personalities aside, let's review the bidding on Einstein and the ether.

Einstein has definitely written that the ether he talks about is not the ether that was part of physics before relativity. Einstein says he believes that ether was undone by special relativity.

Einstein has also defined the ether he talks about in terms that make it clearly the spacetime/gravity field of his General Relativity. Not a mechanical or kinematical thing itself, but codetermining mechanical efects.

Mr. Robin Parsons is of course free to disregard this or to put some special private meaning upon what seem to me to be Einstein's plain words. but for me it seems that the canard that Einstein accepted the ether after 1919 has definitely been shown to be false.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

From this site...
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/comefrom.txt

this quotation of Albert Einstein...

Originally stated by Einstein(?)
Albert EINSTElN: ""There are weighty arguments to be adduced in favor of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever, The fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view 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. ."

Noted as; "The above quote by Dr. Albert Einstein was published in 1920, based on Einstein's speech at the University of Leiden, Holland, (May 5, 1920)."

Followed by; Einstein himself has gone on record stating on his 70th birthday .

Originally stated by Einstein
"Now you think that I am looking back at my life's work with calm satisfaction. But, on closer look, it is quite different. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm and I am not sure if I was on the right track after all:"

Which, personally, I dislike (as a quote of him) as he is no longer here to defend himself.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Andy
No i have nothing about Ether to add to this discussion because i don't pretend to know what I am talking about.

LOL ad infinitum

(Does that mean that you admit to what you don't know? Ha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaw...)

 

[Andy]

That means that if i don't know what's being talked about i either say or sit back and keep my mouth shut until i have a grasp of what is being talked about. I don't get involved in arguements when i don't have some knowledge of what's being argued about.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Andy
That means that if i don't know what's being talked about i either say or sit back and keep my mouth shut until i have a grasp of what is being talked about. I don't get involved in arguements when i don't have some knowledge of what's being argued about.

HAhahahahahaha + [oo][/color][/size]

 

[Andy]

Fvck you Fvck you Fvck you Fvck you Fvck you Fvck you + [oo]

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by andy
**Volountarily censored due to PF policies**[/color] (by me!)

A Prime example of someones intellect, and/or the complete lack thereof, as evidenced by the inability to find any other manner of expressiveness, other then those silly, trite, childish, words!

 

[selfAdjoint]

I didn't quote your post on Einstein citaions because it's long. But I can say a couple of things about it.

I completely agree with the first quotation. Einstein firmly believed that his gravitational field defined spacetime. He often wrote that there is no spacetime^* without the field. By this he didn't just mean "spacetime is full of the field" he meant "where the field is not, there is no spacetime". everything that we take to be spacetime is really just the field. This is his aether.

Note that the occasion of your quote is the same speech that I abstracted from in my first reply to you. Before giving the description of his aether (he is responsible for the a) which you reproduce, he said that it doesn't have any mechanical or kinematical proerties. If the two of us can agree that that speech represents Einstein's views - the whole speach not just our separate pieces of it (blind men and the elephant), then there is no further disagreement.

I firmly agree with you about the second quote. This is just what creators feel as death approaches - everything they have made seems to be trivial or incorrect. cf. Newton and the child at the beach.


^* Einstein commonly wrote "space" for what we should call "spacetime". We know this because he would sometimes add a footnote like "in the sense of Minkowsi".

 

[Andy]

And i suppose hahahahaha isn't childish? especially with the big bright font that you used.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Andy
And i suppose hahahahaha isn't childish? especially with the big bright font that you used.

No, it isn't childish, it is childlike...HUGE[/size] difference!

 

[Eh]

I think I'm going to have a seizure...