Ether Drag Hypothesis Explained - 65 Characters

[russ_watters]

Russ - i will agree that the ether drag was an attempt to save the ether - but it didn't need saving since (as I keep saying and you and your immature friend continue to ignor or misinterpret) SR did not depend upon the existence of an ether or any properties of space whatsoever.

We're not ignoring that, that's the entire point. Because of the failure of the MMx, the ether wasn't so much dead as it was superfluous. So we kinda agree - the ether didn't need saving - we just disagree on why: the ether didn't need saving since it was never alive in the first place.

However, if the ether existed, it would need to be incorporated into SR: it would need to be incorporated into the second postulate. (hold that thought - further discussion later)

SR is strictly observational relational. MMx and other over and back experiments do not disclose anything about the ether - the null result depends from time dilation.

That's the loophole-searching we discussed before. The MMX was specifically designed to detect the ether and when it didn't detect it, it became a piece of evidence against the existence of the ether.

Third call for an answer as to what Einstein meant when he said an ether is necessary for the progagation of light (Last paragraph of his Leiden address).

Third call? We've discussed it already. You continuously lump any mention of the word "ether" together into your undefined "ether" that smells like the classical ether even when you specifically agreed that it can't be.

Regarding the Leyden address - I must admit to never having read the full text (just that last paragraph taken out of context, and even then I never had trouble understanding the distinction you're refusing to draw: ENEVCE). I have now.

http://www.blavatsky.net/confirm/ev/ether/etherEinstein.htm is the full text. Its essentially a history of he ether and its evolution. He even specifically labels different concepts of the ether ("Hertz's ether", for example). It is crystal clear that there is more than one "ether" being descussed there and crystal clear that the ether in SR is not the classical ether. Quotes such as: "What is fundamentally new in the ether of the general theory of relativity as opposed to the ether of Lorentz..." are obviously talking about different concepts of what an "ether" might be. Its your usual mistake: ENEVCE. And yet you still refuse to differentiate. My god, he even calls it "the new ether" (I didn't know that when I started saying it). Far from even being vague or tough to interpret, the interpretation you hold is so clearly, straightforwardly wrong its amazing that you could even say it with a straight face.

Reading more of your previous post, I see a clarification in your point:

Einstein said the ether was superfluous to his 1905 derivation - in 1920 he said it was essential for the progagation of light...

You think Einstein made a mistake in 1905 and changed his mind in 1920. Setting aside the fact that Einstein still used the word "superfluous" in the Leyden address to characterize the relationship between SR and the classical (lumiferous) ether and setting aside that you're mis-paraphrasing him (in 1905, he referred to "the lumiferous ether", in 1920, he referred to "the new ether", and again ENEVCE) (and, I'm going to sound like ZZ here...), if Einstein had made a mistake and changed his mind, where can I find a specific retraction/correction of his 1905 paper? Einstein was famous for his personality as much for his science - he was open to admitting mistakes (as any good scientist is), and yet he never issued any such statement. He never wrote a paper discussing the mistake. A term for the ether flow does not appear anywhere in any equation in any of his papers. In fact, open any physics text today and the 2nd postulate of SR still reads: "The speed of light in vacuum has the same constant value c in all inertial systems. " Why has this not been amended to read 'The speed of light in a vacuum is constant relative to the lumiferous ether'?

edit: RE: Lorentz ether theory: http://www.ajnpx.com/html/Relativity-for-beginners.html is a good discussion of how and more importantly, why Einstein came up with Relativity, including the flaws in the assumptions of Lorentz's theory. It so happens that Lorentz's math works out, but the method to get their is fraught with contradictions and inconsistencies.

 

[anti_crank]

In theory, I should get some comments in before the moderators lose their patience and lock this thread and its endless circularity. In practice, it turns out, I've gotten so much entertainment already from reading all this that any commentary would be fairly superfluous. Marlon calls this exhausting, but I call it a laugh fest; so much so that I'll be almost sorry to find this closed upon my return in 5 days.

 

[yogi]

Russ - If what you are saying is: some ethers have been eliminated - I would totally concur. And i would submit also that the idea of an ether as some sort of fluid medium was dealt a blow by Mmx.

Let me ask you this. Do you think Einstein's statements in the Leyden and other addresses that I have quoted are totally consistent. In other words, Einstein had an opportunity to put the lumiferous ether to bed - and take his stand against the ether as a requirement for the propagation of light - yet he doesn't do that - he says its necessary for the propagation of light.

To take all his statemente at face value, you wind up with a very peculiar animal (like your elephant). Now a distinction can be clearly drawn between Lorentz ether and other properties of space - I think Einstein, when referring to the "ether of Lorentz" is saying that motion with respect to space does not cause a physcial contraction of material things as per Lorentz and FitzGerald - i.e., there is nothing acting upon the electrons and atoms consequent to motion wrt space that brings about a physical shrinkage - So we can agree that Einstein has emphatically eliminated the "ether of Lorentz." I hope I have not given the impression that i am defending the ether of lorentz - because I am not.

But I do not find in his words a condemnation of a propagation medium.

Did Einstein change his mind? I don't think it was so much a change as shift. In his theory of GR he explained the G force as a static space conditioned by mass. Much of his later work was directed to finding a global connectedness. Einstein was convinced that particles do not act directly upon one another, but rather they affect space - and the second particle, being in the field of the first, feels the force of the first because of its affect upon the inbetween space. So while there is no specific retraction, there is this:

See next post

 

[yogi]

“There is no idea of which I would be sure that it would stand the
test of time, and I have doubts whether I am on the right way
In general ...feelings of dissatisfaction come from the inside.”

Quote from Einstein near the end of his life.

 

[Alkatran]

“There is no idea of which I would be sure that it would stand the
test of time, and I have doubts whether I am on the right way
In general ...feelings of dissatisfaction come from the inside.”

Quote from Einstein near the end of his life.

Why is all your evidence seem to be like this:
Einstein said it.
Therefore it is true.

And the other half is

Einstein said it.
Einstein then said it was wrong.
Therefore it is false.


Wait... i think.. I think I see a problem here... what.. is it... Oh I KNOW I;m looking RIGHT at it...

 

[russ_watters]

In theory, I should get some comments in before the moderators lose their patience and lock this thread and its endless circularity. In practice, it turns out, I've gotten so much entertainment already from reading all this that any commentary would be fairly superfluous. Marlon calls this exhausting, but I call it a laugh fest; so much so that I'll be almost sorry to find this closed upon my return in 5 days. [emphasis added]

Can you tell that's my new favorite word? It just rolls off the tongue. Say it with me: Superfluous, superfluous, Beetlegeuse - er, I mean superfluous!

 

[russ_watters]

This needs its own reply:

Russ - If what you are saying is: some ethers have been eliminated - I would totally concur. And i would submit also that the idea of an ether as some sort of fluid medium was dealt a blow by Mmx.

Fabulous. After 7 pages... Does this mean you're going to stop pretending its all the same thing?

 

[russ_watters]

Let me ask you this. Do you think Einstein's statements in the Leyden and other addresses that I have quoted are totally consistent. In other words, Einstein had an opportunity to put the lumiferous ether to bed...

Absolutely. The "lumiferous ether" is completely dead. SR took away its fundamental properties and Einstein confirmed/reiterated that in the Leyden address.

...and take his stand against the ether as a requirement for the propagation of light - yet he doesn't do that - he says its necessary for the propagation of light.

Dang, I thought you had it there for a sec. Just being required for the propagation of light isn't a property. That doesn't say anything about what those properties are that are required for the propagation of light. You're hung up on that tiny little piece of the quote and not looking at the whole picture. By removing the ability to apply motion to the medium, you are fundamentally changing what it is. Its not like we're going from air to water with the propagation of sound and just changing one property a little (bulk modulous) - removing the ability to apply motion makes Einstein's "new ether" fundamentally different from the classical/"lumiferous" ether.

To take all his statemente at face value, you wind up with a very peculiar animal (like your elephant). Now a distinction can be clearly drawn between Lorentz ether and other properties of space - I think Einstein, when referring to the "ether of Lorentz" is saying that motion with respect to space does not cause a physcial contraction of material things as per Lorentz and FitzGerald - i.e., there is nothing acting upon the electrons and atoms consequent to motion wrt space that brings about a physical shrinkage - So we can agree that Einstein has emphatically eliminated the "ether of Lorentz."

You're looking for loopholes in the speech now! Jeez, yogi, you're not taking what Einstein said at face value, you're looking for contradictions. They simply aren't there. Yes, Einstein's "new ether" is "a very peculiar animal". So what? Sorry, but sometimes scientists discover strange things.

But I do not find in his words a condemnation of a propagation medium.

Say it with me, yogi: superfluous, superfluous, su...

In science, there is no such thing as absolute proof and no such thing as proof of a negative. "Superfluous" is about the most damning thing you can say about a concept. It means 'utterly useless, unsupported, and irrelevant'. And that's what the last 100 years have been for ether theory: 100 years of useless irrelevancy. 100 years of speculating about the existence of an invisible purple elephant.

Einstein is quite clear in comparing the "new ether" to the classical one - he uses the example of waves on water and is quie explicit that "The special theory of relativity forbids us to assume the ether to consist of particles observable through time...," then goes on to explain what the new ether can look like. Essentially it sounds like a medium without the medium: no mass, no density, no pressure, scattering or absorbing of waves - none of the fundamental properties that make up the classical definition of an ether as a physical medium on which waves propagate.

I hope I have not given the impression that i am defending the ether of lorentz - because I am not.

No, you've just been lumping all references to the word into one undefined blob (in fact, you did state above that SR was compatible with Lorentz's ether - which is factually incorrect. The math may be the same, but the theories are not). What you appear to support isn't specifically Lorentz's ether, but it smells a lot like it.

Did Einstein change his mind? I don't think it was so much a change as shift.

Am I supposed to read that without laughing? Call it whatever you want - if there was a shift in his opinion/theory (especially one so fundamental), then he would have explicitly stated it and written a paper discussing it. He didn't.

In his theory of GR he explained the G force as a static space conditioned by mass. Much of his later work was directed to finding a global connectedness. Einstein was convinced that particles do not act directly upon one another, but rather they affect space - and the second particle, being in the field of the first, feels the force of the first because of its affect upon the inbetween space. So while there is no specific retraction, there is this:

See next post

None of that contradicts what Einstein said in 1905 or 1920 about SR, and a quote about his confidence in himself as a scientist is irrelevant to the conversation: saying he wasn't sure he was right is not the same as saying he was wrong.

Alkatran:

 

[yogi]

Russ - I am not pretending anything - There is much to be learned from studing the properties of the void.

I have several times acknowledged the properties of the medium are unrelated to Einstein's derivation of the transforms - that is not even an issue, and never was except as to those who kept (and continue) bringing it up because they have not read what I was saying. And I have clarified that Einstein rejected the notion of a Lorentz ether, and also that I never endorsed such an ether (one that brings about contractions when physical objects are moved relative thereto). Einstein drew a fine line between what the ether was, and what it was not, and that is what I attempted to do, obviously with our success.

So for all those who think they know it all - here is a Fourth call for an answer to what Einstein meant by: "...without an ether there can be no propagation of light" If you don't have an answer - fine - just say so or say nothing.

 

[russ_watters]

I have several times acknowledged the properties of the medium are unrelated to Einstein's derivation of the transforms - that is not even an issue, and never was except as to those who kept (and continue) bringing it up because they have not read what I was saying.

We keep bringing it up because what you are saying is wrong. Einstein's derivation is based on the universal principle of relativity, and that's a fundamental shift away from the classical ether. The fact that Einstein does not assume the existence of a particulate medium is not superfluous ( ) - its the entire issue we're discussing.

And I have clarified that Einstein rejected the notion of a Lorentz ether, and also that I never endorsed such an ether (one that brings about contractions when physical objects are moved relative thereto). Einstein drew a fine line between what the ether was, and what it was not, and that is what I attempted to do, obviously with our success.

The reason you haven't succeeded in drawing that line is because you don't have a theory to discuss and thus you have been (apparently) lumping every mention of the word "ether" into a nebulous blob. If you stopped doing that, I wouldn't have to keep reminding you that the various ethers aren't the same (though you are being a little more open in admitting that now than you used to be).

edit: in any case, post 10 (I started at the beginning and that's the first I found) looks to me like an endorsement of Lorentz ether theory. You claim (incorrectly) that the properties of the Lorentz ether don't factor into SR. They do: the assumption is simply that the Lorentz ether doesn't exist. If those properties had been found to be real, that would absolutely have an effect on SR.

So for all those who think they know it all

Get off your high horse: the only one here who is making a claim with no evidence to back it up is you. You've admitted that. Heck, for whatever reason, you haven't even been specific about what your claim is - just what little bits of it are.

...here is a Fourth call for an answer to what Einstein meant by: "...without an ether there can be no propagation of light" If you don't have an answer - fine - just say so or say nothing.

That's been asked and answerd in virtually every post in this thread, you're just refusing to accept the answer. Heck, I answered it in the first 3 sentences of this post! The simple answer is that "empty space" has properties and those properties are required for the propagation of light. But here's a shift: why don't you tell us precisely what this "ether" he is talking about is (or, better yet, forget Einstein: tell us what you think that ether looks like). You're the one claiming that every mainstream physicist who has lived in the past 100 years is wrong. Tell us why.

 

[yogi]

On the contrary - I am claiming Einstein is correct - at least as to those aspects of what he considered to be an ether, and as to those aspects which he considered erroneous.

Why would you expect me to have a model of an ether - Einstein didn't have a model - he defined it as best he could in terms of properties such as inertia, gravity, and fields etc. Maybe Ed Witten will find a model of the ether that incorporates all of its known characterics - but it has never been my intention to imply that I have anything to add to what is already known - ... new theories belong in a different section of the forums - the only reason prompting me to comment by entering posts on the subject is because those who are not familiar with the history of the subject tend make overly broad and erroneous claims that SR disproved the existence of an ether - superfluous means in excess of what is sufficient - an ether is superfluous to SR. Enough said on that subject

SR is such a sensitive subject on these boards that any attempt to be precise about what was and was not implied by Einstein immediately generates a wave of derogatory feedback.

Thank you for your answer: "empty space has properties and those properties are required for the propagation of light." I couldn't agree more, nor could I have said it better.

 

[Reshma]

Gosh, I never thought my thread would go this far!

 

[ZapperZ]

SR is such a sensitive subject on these boards that any attempt to be precise about what was and was not implied by Einstein immediately generates a wave of derogatory feedback.

And deservedly so when one tries to misinterpret and twist things into unrecognized form. Let's not forget that you tried to slip false ideas by us by implying the de Broglie's matter wave never ever appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

What you seem to miss is the fact that there ARE challenges to SR all the time! Just because you are ignorant of it, doesn't mean it doesn't occur. [Obviously you only preach about such principles with respect to the ether, but you don't practice it]. Various incarnations of String and quantum gravity predicts violation of the lorentz transformation. Such challenges NEVER "generate a wave of deragatory feedback". Why? These things are done based on the PHYSICS, not based on quotations from "idols". There is a distinct difference between what YOU do, and what legitimate studies in physics do. Please try not to confuse those two.

Thank you for your answer: "empty space has properties and those properties are required for the propagation of light." I couldn't agree more, nor could I have said it better.

Except you gave it the WRONG name. Virtual photon fields as described in QFT/QED look NOTHING like the "ether". Show this to the 19th century physicists and they would NOT recognize this as being their ether!

If this quantum field is what you've been pushing all along, and what you think Einstein meant (he didn't get to see QFT/QED in its full bloom), then it is IRRESPONSIBLE of you to call this field "ether" because you are changing the name that has been given to such a field. However, if this is really what you meant, but yet you haven't a clue what QFT/QED really is, then aren't you really pushing something out of ignorance?

Somehow, either way, it looks BAD!

Zz.

 

[Chronos]

Yogi, imagine Einstein having the unpleasant task of defending his theory while showing sensitivity and respect for his peers. It was necessary to lay to rest the venerable, but mistaken notions of the past. It was not necessary to callously dump the corpse into the nearest river. Einstein instead chose to reach out to his peers and mourn the loss of that part of their belief system. The Leiden speech was a funeral - putting to rest the past but honoring its role in creating the future.

 

[russ_watters]

On the contrary - I am claiming Einstein is correct - at least as to those aspects of what he considered to be an ether, and as to those aspects which he considered erroneous.

You cannot say that after saying Einstein's position "shift"ed, after claiming/implying contradictions and inconsistencies, and after advocating some aspects of various classical ether theories. You're being inconsistent (again).

Why would you expect me to have a model of an ether - Einstein didn't have a model - he defined it as best he could in terms of properties such as inertia, gravity, and fields etc.

That was Einstein's model. And we still use it! What I would expect from you, at the very least, is to be specific about the aspects of different models that you favor. You've implied quite a bit about your preference for a classical lumiferous ether, but you haven't been specfic about it. About the only thing you've made clear is how badly you misunderstand Einstein's position on the ether.

...the only reason prompting me to comment by entering posts on the subject is because those who are not familiar with the history of the subject tend make overly broad and erroneous claims that SR disproved the existence of an ether - superfluous means in excess of what is sufficient - an ether is superfluous to SR.

And your misunderstandings/mischaracterizations continue...

SR is such a sensitive subject on these boards that any attempt to be precise about what was and was not implied by Einstein immediately generates a wave of derogatory feedback.

Quite the contrary: precision is exactly what we are looking for. You have consistently resisted clarity and precision by lumping together various "ether" citings into one nebulous blob (see your erroneous characterization above: why, again, did you not specify that there is more than one "ether"?).

Thank you for your answer: "empty space has properties and those properties are required for the propagation of light." I couldn't agree more, nor could I have said it better.

...but you do still misunderstand what it means.

 

[yogi]

Russ -Only several posts previously you admitted to never having read the entire Leyden (Leiden) address - yet you continue to pontificate on the ether. Of course, that is your privilege.

As for me, however, I again repeat - i don't have a model and I don't think anyone else (including Einstein) has (had) either - at least none that is able to explain inertia, expansion, impedance etc. Einstein frequently reflected upon various aspects of space, both in his Leyden address and in many of his other works later in life - he pointed out why Mach's principle was unsatisfactory, why Lorentz either was unsatisfactory, why space was real according to Newton, etc - but that is not a model as you have asserted, it is a philosophy, a dialog of inquiry - as chronos said - he is reaching out to his peers. I doubt whether its possible to practice the same sort of dialectic on these boards..

Reshma - it shouldn't have gone this far - time to quit is long overdue. Perhaps somewhere in these posts you will find an answer to your question. Good Luck.