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>the postulating of the lumeferious ether Fairly sure that's the just a progressive step towards Einstein's model. It is difficult to define wrong in a scient
by verroq 16y ago
>the postulating of the lumeferious ether
Fairly sure that's the just a progressive step towards Einstein's model.
It is difficult to define wrong in a scientific context since everything is just model that matches observations. Of course, as more observations come, models will be naturally disproved. That doesn't mean they were wrong for the entirety of their existence which I think was your point, but you haven't applied it to the examples you raised.
In the example of ether, It was believed to be permeate all matter and the medium for light to travel through. It explained all observations at that time until the Michelson-Morley experiment which settled it.
- siglesias 16y agoI agree that wrong is difficult to define in these contexts, but remember that the only proof of the existence of the ether was that 1) light was thought to be a wave by the mathematical formulation of Maxwell, and 2) all known waves had a physical medium. That's it. It was a very ad hoc construction that immediately presented ways to test it. When it was tested by the MM experiment, it turned out to be undetectable at best, thereby exposing its weakness as a theory. Einstein didn't use the theory as a springboard because it was so good and useful; he used it as a springboard because it was so bad.