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RoughRoad
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During the 19th century, it was proposed that light travels through vacuum in the presence of a pseudo medium known as ether. But does it really exist? Is there any evidence whether it exists or not?
RoughRoad said:Is there any experimental proof that it doesn't exist?
mgb_phys said:Ether certainly exists
Aether on the other hand doesn't
RoughRoad said:During the 19th century, it was proposed that light travels through vacuum in the presence of a pseudo medium known as ether. But does it really exist? Is there any evidence whether it exists or not?
Nickelodeon said:not exactly the same but certainly sharing some of the same properties as the 19th century aether.
cragar said:If an aether existed the planets would not keep orbiting they would slow down.
jtbell said:Which to my mind is like calling a horse a hippopotamus because they share some of the same features.
Nickelodeon said:I just wonder why you think so? If there existed an aether, then one of its most significant features was that it was considered mass less so no transfer of momentum could contribute to a slow down.
cragar said:A photon has no mass but it has momentum and it can transfer momentum , like in laser cooling .
cragar said:well doesn't everything have a frequency , and we are talking about something that doesn't even exist.
cragar said:so your implying that gravity is continuous and magnetic fields are continuous and not quantized.
DaleSpam said:No. There is no evidence that it exists.
Please identify one experiment that that is inconsistent with ether not existing. If a concept is not needed for calculations of the outcome of any physical experiment then how is that scientifically different from it not existing?bjacoby said:There is evidence that ether exists. One such evidence is that so-called empty space has properties. Even Einstein acknowledged this. His point was not that ether didn't exist but rather that the concept wasn't needed for calculations!
Nickelodeon said:No not everything. The field round a magnet for instance. Einstein's 'spacetime continuum' the non existent aether to name but a few.
DavidSullivan said:Is it wrong to think of the time-space continuum as an "ether" of sorts?
jlknapp505 said:About experimentation regarding my hypothesis:
Doppler shifting is completely compatible with SR and does not require a medium.jlknapp505 said:7. I would argue that the presence of Doppler shifting requires a medium;