The discussion revolves around the nature of light and gravity, particularly questioning the consistency of light in space and the existence of a medium through which light travels. Participants explore concepts such as aether, space-time, and the implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment on our understanding of gravity and light propagation.
The discussion contains multiple competing views regarding the existence of a medium for light, the nature of gravity, and the interpretation of experimental results. No consensus is reached on these topics.
Participants express uncertainty about the implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment and the nature of space-time, indicating a need for further exploration and understanding of these concepts.
I want to help but I didnt understand your questionjohn-of-the-divine said:
there's no substance in empty space.there's no aether.john-of-the-divine said:
john-of-the-divine said:
Where ? Any source ?john-of-the-divine said:
Its not inconclusive..Its a fact of nature..Light doesn't need a medium to travel.john-of-the-divine said:
"Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve"(John Archibald Wheeler)john-of-the-divine said:
Pushing pulling is strange words to describe the situation I guess.I would say matters attract each otherjohn-of-the-divine said:
john-of-the-divine said:
What is "known" so far is what has been observed: light has no problem traversing the entire width of the visible universe. So there is good reason to believe it travels forever.john-of-the-divine said:
By observing how light behaves.
The idea that space can be empty and yet have a geometry (and other properties) may be difficult to wrap your mind around, but it is well supported by observations.john-of-the-divine said:
Because GR predicted that predicted very massive objects would act as a gravitational lens,john-of-the-divine said:
The general answer to the question of "what is...?" anything, is that the thing you want to know about "is" the sum of its known and theorized properties. This is likely to be unsatisfying to you because the known/theorized properties of space are probably less than you want to believe it has.john-of-the-divine said:
By observing how light behaves in it.
That isn't a very good approach to learning.
I'm not sure what you mean, but ok...john-of-the-divine said:
Yes; astronomy. We learn a lot about space by observing light that has traveled across the universe.
Clearly. But the math describes very well what is observed.
You're welcome, but don't give up on learning just because you didn't go to school for it. It's true that you won't be able to learn it to the same depth as a college degree, but there is some good learning you can do.
What did who mean? OP = "Original Post" (your first post in this thread) or "Original Poster" (you) in most cases on a discussion forum.john-of-the-divine said:
Ah, okay. I just now used my Mentor superpowers to read his previous version, and he was just saying that it sounded like you hadn't heard of several very accurate experiments that have been done in pretty different ways to verify the speed of light and no aether. Have you read the Wikipedia pages about the speed of light and various experiments done to verify that c is constant in a vacuum and not dependent on moving through some medium?john-of-the-divine said:
It would be difficult for the math to be more than a little wrong because we use it to do practical things like navigate with Google maps and it works.john-of-the-divine said:
It's usually fine for well-understood stuff (which this is). For cutting edge theories, it can be a bit problematic (with lots of folks editing the articles). Give it a try and tell us what you think...john-of-the-divine said:
from here to the moon isn't very far when you consider the vastness of space. idk, I'm checking out the link that berkeman sent meruss_watters said: