I recently heard a physics lecture claim that the luminiferous aether didn’t really get kicked out of physics. We still have a mathematical structure, which we just call “the vacuum”, through which electromagnetic waves propagate. So all we ever did was kill the aether’s velocity-structure, right?
Of course if you define “luminiferous aether” as generally as “whatever mechanism results in the propagation of electromagnetic waves”, then it exists, because electromagnetic waves do propagate. But when it was under serious scientific consideration, the luminiferous aether theory made testable predictions, and they failed. Just saying “they’re different concepts” is easier than saying “it’s the same basic concept except it has a different name and the structure of the theory is totally different”.
I could sympathize with trying to revive the name “luminiferous aether” (or even better, “luminiferous æther”), though. It’s a pretty awesome name. (I go by “Luminiferous Æther Bunny” on a few other forums.)
I recently heard a physics lecture claim that the luminiferous aether didn’t really get kicked out of physics. We still have a mathematical structure, which we just call “the vacuum”, through which electromagnetic waves propagate. So all we ever did was kill the aether’s velocity-structure, right?
That reminds me of this discussion.
Of course if you define “luminiferous aether” as generally as “whatever mechanism results in the propagation of electromagnetic waves”, then it exists, because electromagnetic waves do propagate. But when it was under serious scientific consideration, the luminiferous aether theory made testable predictions, and they failed. Just saying “they’re different concepts” is easier than saying “it’s the same basic concept except it has a different name and the structure of the theory is totally different”.
I could sympathize with trying to revive the name “luminiferous aether” (or even better, “luminiferous æther”), though. It’s a pretty awesome name. (I go by “Luminiferous Æther Bunny” on a few other forums.)
Nice link. It would be cool to see a similar discussion for all the classic rejected hypotheses.