Does aether actually exist?

sportsherald

No. In Encyclopaedia Britannica: "aether." © Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. 21 Dec. 2011. Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aether it is described as disproved, below: "Encyclopedia Britannica- aether in physics, a theoretical, universal substance believed during the 19th century to act as the medium for transmission of electromagnetic waves (e.g., light and X rays) much as sound waves are transmitted by elastic media such as air. The ether was assumed to be weightless, transparent, frictionless, undetectable chemically or physically, and literally permeating all matter and space. The theory met with increasing difficulties as the nature of light and the structure of matter became better understood; it was seriously weakened (1881) by the Michelson-Morley experiment (q.v.), which was designed specifically to detect the motion of the Earth through the ether and which showed that there was no such effect" Dec 21 11, 6:30 PM

satguru

There are still theories about gravity which suggest an existence of a force in what would be considered a vacuum, which was the nature of aether generally. If found matter bends the background space then something (rather than nothing as thought currently) will have to bend to allow the surrounding objects to fall towards it). Aether can be seen as a general term referring to this force within a vacuum, and also claimed to contain zero point energy, an infinite source of power which could one day be tapped to provide us with all our needs. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101108204101AAvJVdS http://www.panacea-bocaf.org/zeropointenergy.htm Basically there is a vast area of science we have little knowledge of as yet, partly as we have no means to measure it. As there is no direct way to measure gravity but we know it must exist due to the effects, then once it can be measured that may provide both answers. http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/ES304/MODULES/GRAV/NOTES/measgrv.html Dec 21 11, 9:40 PM