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Luminiferous aether or ether [1] (luminiferous meaning 'light-bearing') was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. [2] It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave -based light to propagate through empty space (a vacuum ), something that waves should not be able to do.
The timeline of luminiferous aether (light-bearing aether) or ether as a medium for propagating electromagnetic radiation begins in the 18th century. The aether was assumed to exist for much of the 19th century—until the Michelson–Morley experiment returned its famous null result.
In the 19th century, luminiferous aether (or ether), meaning light-bearing aether, was a theorized medium for the propagation of light. James Clerk Maxwell developed a model to explain electric and magnetic phenomena using the aether, a model that led to what are now called Maxwell's equations and the understanding that light is an ...
The experiment compared the speed of light in perpendicular directions in an attempt to detect the relative motion of matter, including their laboratory, through the luminiferous aether, or "aether wind" as it was sometimes called. The result was negative, in that Michelson and Morley found no significant difference between the speed of light ...
The body of light, sometimes called the 'astral body' [a] or the 'subtle body,' [b] is a "quasi material" [1] aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, posited by a number of philosophers, and elaborated on according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings.
And referring to the Fizeau experiment, he even wrote: "The aether is all but in our grasp." He also said the aether is necessary to harmonize Lorentz's theory with Newton's third law. Even in 1912 in a paper called "The Quantum Theory", Poincaré ten times used the word "aether", and described light as "luminous vibrations of the aether". [A 19]
A 1933 portrait of E. T. Whittaker by Arthur Trevor Haddon. The book was originally written in the period immediately following the publication of Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers and several years following the early work of Max Planck; it was a transitional period for physics, where special relativity and old quantum theory were gaining traction.
The famous Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887 showed that the then-accepted aether theory needed to be modified. FitzGerald and Lorentz, independently of each other, proposed a length contraction of the experimental apparatus in the direction of motion (with respect to the luminiferous aether) that would explain the almost null result of the Michelson–Morley experiment.