If there is no Ether how can we talk about light being a wave?

[protonman]

I realized today that Physics is not all it is made out to be. Sure it makes a contribution in the ability to predict some events in the physical world. But, it receives a status in society that is disproportionate to its actual validity. Science is a very limited endeavor that only addresses the physical world. This is such a minute portion of our existence and yet these people claim to have a theory of everything.

True understanding comes from the humanities. Areas such as philosophy and fields that attempt to understand human relations and behavior are the true truth seekers. The evidence for this is simple. As the general trend among humanity moved from inner development to outer development so came the desire to develop better methods of killing other humans. The popularity of the materialistic view is a direct consequence of the degenerative state of humanity of which war and gross economic inequality are symptoms.

It is well known that there is a direct relationship between war and technological advancement. What is the foundation of technology? Science. It may be argued that the Greeks and other ancient cultures pursued similar questions as todays modern scientists. But the ancients were also aware of the role of reasoning in their quest. In addition, these individuals were also social philosophers and discussed ethics and morality. I am not making the case that all scientists are in the business of war but if we look deep where does the money come from for science? Where do the universities get their funding. Why was MIT at one point 90% DOD funded? Lurking behind the scenes is always the specture of the materialistic view. The view that places more importance on outer development than inner development.

 

[protonman]

Originally posted by Zero
Sounds like circular reasoning to me.

Which is a nice way of you saying you don't understand it. I don't care if you don't agree with it. If you can't produce an argument to refute it you can't criticize.

What I am saying is that we are establishing a general principle that is applied to particular objects. The logic would follow A vase is produced because it is a material object.

So we have two criteria that are satisfied. First that the vase is a material object. And that whatever is a material object is pervaded by being produced. Based on the fact that the vase is a material object and the relation between material objects and being produced, we can infer with certainty that the vase is produced.

I hope this helps.

 

[Hurkyl]

I realized today that Physics is not all it is made out to be.

Gasp! The media doesn't portray things accurately? Wow, what an insight, you really are enlightened!

 

[Hurkyl]

First that the vase is a material object.

How do we know that?

 

[Eyesaw]

Originally posted by Nereid
But you could be proactive here, and suggest one or two (or 25 or 341) experiments which might detect such particles; or you could predict the likely range of properties of such particles ...

Further, you have available to you a truly vast amount of data - both in raw form and processed - FREE! - from across the EM spectrum (~1 TeV gammas to LVF radio), from the whole sky, with levels of intensity that Maxwell and Einstein would surely have not believed possible, and on, and on - that you can analyse for constraints on your proposed range of properties.

Etc, etc, etc.

How much of this have you done so far?

I just thought of this yesterday. But frankly, I have
a lot of catching up to do in matter of the mathematical
part of physics. I think it's indisputable though that
Maxwell's equations describe wave motion through the ether
since Quantum mechanical model of particle-waves didn't
even exist yet. Off the top of my head, I would think
any experiment that demonstrates the permitivitty and
permeability of the vacuum to be variable would confirm
the ether. Since light is observed to be refracted by
the gravitational field, wouldn't this serve as a confirmation
of a variably dense ether? It may be fashionable to call it
the curvature of space-time now but functionally, it acts
like a medium of some unnamed stuff.

 

[Hurkyl]

Since light is observed to be refracted by
the gravitational field, wouldn't this serve as a confirmation
of a variably dense ether?

The trick is, if you went over to the place where the light was refracted and measured the permeability and permittivity of free space, they would be exactly the same as they are back on earth.

 

[Nereid]

Eyesaw wrote: Off the top of my head, I would think any experiment that demonstrates the permitivitty and permeability of the vacuum to be variable would confirm the ether.

Please let us have details of any such experiments.

Eyesaw wrote: Since light is observed to be refracted by the gravitational field, wouldn't this serve as a confirmation of a variably dense ether?

Maybe.

However, as GR is a good theory, at least in the sense that it consistently accounts for the Shapiro time delay, gravitational deflection of light, and the gravitational redshift - all of which have been observed, and match the predictions of GR to the limits of the observations - there's no need for an extra assumption ('a variably dense ether').

Further, if you choose to invoke such a variable density ether, you find it has the curious property of corresponding exactly to the gravitational field (to the limits of the observations)!

Finally, since the gravitational redshift has been observed in the lab here on Earth - over a vertical distance of a few tens of metres, IIRC - you should be able to do some experiments to find your variable density ether in your own lab.

Oh, I almost forgot; gravitational deflection of light is also predicted by classical (Newtonian) physics, but the observed deflection matches GR's prediction, not classical physics' (they differ by a factor of 2, which is easily observable).

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Eyesaw
Everyone at the time believed in an ether so I think it’s a good assumption to say that the whole Electromagnetic model was based on an ether as substrate.

That's not what I asked you. I asked you what substrate is logically derivable from Maxwell's equations, not what the original formulators of the theory believed about it.

I don’t think anyone before Einstein would have been crazy enough to think a wave can exist absence of a medium since waves are not the actual particle motion but the silhouette of their collective motion. A common illustration of wave motion is the people in a stadium who start standing up and down one by one- if you only have one person in the stadium, you can’t have wave motion.

Again, this presupposes that matter (or some substance) must be involved in wave motion. Why can't EM waves simply be displacements in the E and B fields, as Maxwell's equations themselves say they are?

I think you misunderstood the sentence. I’m saying there’s no way to reject the idea that some medium exists in which light is just the disturbance in the medium, like any normal wave, since one can always argue that the stuff consisting of the medium are too small to be detectable by current technology.

OK

For example, Dr. Tom Van Flandern proposes such a medium in the Meta Model which they called the Elysium. The medium you are speaking of here is total empty space of which there would exist no properties, which is entirely opposite to the ether medium Maxwell and all those who developed the Maxwell equations envisioned. So if you are going to derive Maxwell’s equations based on the ability of light as a wave that travels without a medium, you have to show that this is possible in the first place. But as mentioned before, you can’t rule out the possibility of a medium consisting of particles too tiny to be detected which could explain the wave motion so you this introduction of a radically new concept- that of a wave existing without a medium- becomes unnecessary.

I don't "rule out" the ether. I even acknowledge that SR doesn't rule it out. My position (which is the position of SR) is not that "the ether does not exist", but rather that "the ether is a superfluous concept that is not logically derivable from Maxwell's equations".

You are not adding an assumption when considering an ether necessary for wave motion.

Actually, you are, since the Maxwell theory does not require an ether. The postulates of SR are not a new model of EM wave propagation, they are simply comments on the old theory, namely that the speed of light is source-independent (which has been experimentally verified) and that the laws of physics are the same for all inertial observers (ditto for that one).

Are you adding an assumption by saying that ocean waves need an ocean to exist?

Of course not. But you are adding an assumption when you say that EM waves require anything more than an EM field to exist.

If so, you should take that up with Mother Nature. While you’re at it, you should file the complaint also that gravity is unnecessary since we already have attractive motion in Electromagnetism.

Gravity is observed. The same cannot be said of the ether.

If a wave model already exists that can explain EM radiation, the introduction of a new model for waves just to accommodate light becomes uneconomical, especially since it contradicts the mountains of evidence for normal wave behaviour in sound and other waves.

I am not proposing a new wave model. My contention is that the Maxwellian wave model does not include an ether.

Well, because in every particle we know of when momentum is transferred, they gain velocity. Since SR rejected the ether and yet assumes source independency of light, both of which are “assumptions” which totally contradicted all evidence of wave and particle behavior prior to Einstein, the one proposing such radical ideas should provide some clear evidence such contradictions are necessary to explain the behavior of light. Or develop a mathematical model to demonstrate this special behavior. All Einstein seemed to have done in SR is point out that Maxwell’s equations predict a constant speed c for EM waves propagating in a uniformly dense ether. But since he got rid of the ether, he loses his right to use Maxwell's equations for his theories.

Since Einstein, the source independence of the speed of light has been observed. Einstein also gave persuasive theoretical arguments on why this should be so. Also, as I said before, SR does not reject the ether. It simply does not need it, which is why the ether is "uneconomical".

 

[protonman]

Originally posted by Hurkyl
How do we know that?

Are you a total idiot? Because it is made of atoms.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by protonman
Are you a total idiot? Because it is made of atoms.

Watch the name-calling.

 

[protonman]

Originally posted by Zero
Watch the name-calling.

Eat me.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Eyesaw
You are not adding an assumption when considering an ether necessary for wave motion. Are you adding an assumption by saying that ocean waves need an ocean to exist?

[to elaborate on Tom's answer] The difference is simple: you don't have to assume the ocean is there because you can see it. As of yet, no evidence whatsoever has been found to show the existence of an ether. All that can be said is that the evidence we have, though not requiring an ether to be explained, doesn't completely rule it out either.

 

[Phobos]

This flaming & trolling has gone far enough. Maybe I can salvage the good parts.