5 ms·

This got me thinking about the old concept of the ether, which was supposedly debunked by the Michelson-Morley experiment. However, I don't think that experimen

This got me thinking about the old concept of the ether, which was supposedly debunked by the Michelson-Morley experiment. However, I don't think that experiment completely disproved the existence of the ether – it just showed that the classical ether theories were inconsistent with the observed constancy of the speed of light. What if we consider the quantum vacuum, with its virtual particles and fluctuations, as a modern version of the ether? In that case, could the rotation of the Earth interact with this "quantum ether" and influence the propagation of the entangled photons in the Vienna experiment? It's kind of like the idea of frame dragging in general relativity, where the rotation of a massive object affects the surrounding spacetime geometry. Of course, this is just speculation, and any theory involving an ether-like concept would need to be consistent with all the experimental evidence supporting relativity and quantum mechanics. But I think it's still worth exploring these ideas, as they could lead to new insights into the nature of space, time, and gravity.

api 2y ago
If there were any kind of ether it would perhaps allow a universal positioning system, basically 3D GPS without supporting infrastructure that worked no matter where you went as long as the system could track you and periodically recalibrate itself vs some landmark. The more sensitive and precise the less recalibration it would ever need.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Yes and no. We can measure our speed and direction of movement against the cosmic microwave background, which averages over a much larger area than our visible Universe (if redshift is interpreted as light aging because of ether), but local measurements will be sensitive to local flow only. It's like measuring speed of wind to calculate position. It's possible, to some degree, if you have a map of winds, but its precision is extremely low.
simiones 2y ago
The ether was considered to be the physical medium in which light waves propagate, much like air is the medium in which sound waves propagates. The Michelson-Morley experiment (and its successors) proved that it can't be a stationary medium - it would have to move together with the Earth; other experiments had proved that the Earth can't have a very powerful "drag" effect on it either. So, it isn't stationary and it isn't being dragged along with the Earth's movements - almost a contradiction. Special relativity came along and basically gave an explanation of the workings and movement of light that simply didn't need to make any assumptions about the medium in which light waves propagate. The photoelectric effect, showing that light has a dual nature, either particle or wave, pushed the need for an aether to carry it even lower down. QM probably sealed that completely, with the Schrodinger equation as an explanation of the wave-like nature of fundamental particles. I really don't think that this interaction between the spin of the Earth and the properties of photons has any true relationship with the notion of an aether. If you wanted to, it would be easier to call the fields in QFT as a kind of aether, I believe they share more properties with the concept.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Experiments show that drag coefficient for light depends on light frequency, but light is not a plain radiowave, it's a Hopfion or a similar thing, so our intuition about its interaction with physical vacuum (ether) can be wrong. Moreover, light is an electromagnetic wave, so it propagates through physical vacuum (ether) because of non-zero capacitance and inductance of the medium. It's possible that light interacts with physical vacuum (ether) only when transitioning from one state to another OR when it is in one of two states, which explains the behavior. PS. For example, look at walking droplet. It interacts with the medium through it pilot wave when it bounces off, part of the time, so drag is partial and depends on frequency too.
spiritbear14 2y ago
I think the ether can be seen as a very primitive form of quantum field theory. It's like Newton attempting to do alchemy by turning lead into gold. We later find out that it is possible but not the way he was doing it and tremendously difficult. But we don't know if ether or QFT or any of these theories is actually what's going on.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  Ether is a physical thing, while quantum field is a mathematical model of the physical thing. Don't mix physics and mathematics, please.
  - simiones 2y ago
    Nothing in quantum theory is understood at a level where we can say "this is a physical thing" vs "this is a mathematical abstraction of the physical thing", like we can say for classical physics. In classical physics, it's easy to say "masses and speeds and positions and forces are physical things, while energy or the Langrangian or the Hamiltonian are mathematical tools". But in quantum physics, we have things like the Schrodinger equation (or the QFTs) where it's not clear. They don't appear to be physical, but we also have the Bell inequalities that suggest there can't be an objective physical layer beneath them either, so we are left with a conundrum. I think a lot of people do believe that quantum fields are real physical things, and actually "more real" than the classical intuitions we have. In this view, the electron field or the electric field are what actually exists, and balls or water or ether are the abstractions.
    - oneshtein 2y ago
      Yes, this is the problem I'm talking about. We are not understanding physics at quantum level, so we are using mathematical model to describe reality, but it creates problem when we are starting to understand the physics. Hydrodynamic quantum analogs are macroscopic objects with quantum behavior, which we can study. We can clearly see, with our own eyes, medium, particle, it pilot wave, and their interaction. For example, double slit experiment is not a mystery anymore: it just self-interference of pilot wave.
earthicus 2y ago
Frank Wilczek has argued for something similar to this point of view. Here's a non-technical 'op-ed' where he discusses it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7pl5V0YU9taaXE0ZWJNRzlHNlU/view?resourcekey=0-I89mlfGyRyO3OqorLU38-g https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7pl5V0YU9taaXE0ZWJNRzlHNlU...

api 2y ago

If there were any kind of ether it would perhaps allow a universal positioning system, basically 3D GPS without supporting infrastructure that worked no matter where you went as long as the system could track you and periodically recalibrate itself vs some landmark. The more sensitive and precise the less recalibration it would ever need.

oneshtein 2y ago
Yes and no. We can measure our speed and direction of movement against the cosmic microwave background, which averages over a much larger area than our visible Universe (if redshift is interpreted as light aging because of ether), but local measurements will be sensitive to local flow only. It's like measuring speed of wind to calculate position. It's possible, to some degree, if you have a map of winds, but its precision is extremely low.

simiones 2y ago

The ether was considered to be the physical medium in which light waves propagate, much like air is the medium in which sound waves propagates. The Michelson-Morley experiment (and its successors) proved that it can't be a stationary medium - it would have to move together with the Earth; other experiments had proved that the Earth can't have a very powerful "drag" effect on it either. So, it isn't stationary and it isn't being dragged along with the Earth's movements - almost a contradiction. Special relativity came along and basically gave an explanation of the workings and movement of light that simply didn't need to make any assumptions about the medium in which light waves propagate. The photoelectric effect, showing that light has a dual nature, either particle or wave, pushed the need for an aether to carry it even lower down. QM probably sealed that completely, with the Schrodinger equation as an explanation of the wave-like nature of fundamental particles. I really don't think that this interaction between the spin of the Earth and the properties of photons has any true relationship with the notion of an aether. If you wanted to, it would be easier to call the fields in QFT as a kind of aether, I believe they share more properties with the concept.

oneshtein 2y ago
Experiments show that drag coefficient for light depends on light frequency, but light is not a plain radiowave, it's a Hopfion or a similar thing, so our intuition about its interaction with physical vacuum (ether) can be wrong. Moreover, light is an electromagnetic wave, so it propagates through physical vacuum (ether) because of non-zero capacitance and inductance of the medium. It's possible that light interacts with physical vacuum (ether) only when transitioning from one state to another OR when it is in one of two states, which explains the behavior. PS. For example, look at walking droplet. It interacts with the medium through it pilot wave when it bounces off, part of the time, so drag is partial and depends on frequency too.

spiritbear14 2y ago

I think the ether can be seen as a very primitive form of quantum field theory. It's like Newton attempting to do alchemy by turning lead into gold. We later find out that it is possible but not the way he was doing it and tremendously difficult. But we don't know if ether or QFT or any of these theories is actually what's going on.

oneshtein 2y ago
Ether is a physical thing, while quantum field is a mathematical model of the physical thing. Don't mix physics and mathematics, please.
- simiones 2y ago
  Nothing in quantum theory is understood at a level where we can say "this is a physical thing" vs "this is a mathematical abstraction of the physical thing", like we can say for classical physics. In classical physics, it's easy to say "masses and speeds and positions and forces are physical things, while energy or the Langrangian or the Hamiltonian are mathematical tools". But in quantum physics, we have things like the Schrodinger equation (or the QFTs) where it's not clear. They don't appear to be physical, but we also have the Bell inequalities that suggest there can't be an objective physical layer beneath them either, so we are left with a conundrum. I think a lot of people do believe that quantum fields are real physical things, and actually "more real" than the classical intuitions we have. In this view, the electron field or the electric field are what actually exists, and balls or water or ether are the abstractions.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    Yes, this is the problem I'm talking about. We are not understanding physics at quantum level, so we are using mathematical model to describe reality, but it creates problem when we are starting to understand the physics. Hydrodynamic quantum analogs are macroscopic objects with quantum behavior, which we can study. We can clearly see, with our own eyes, medium, particle, it pilot wave, and their interaction. For example, double slit experiment is not a mystery anymore: it just self-interference of pilot wave.

earthicus 2y ago

Frank Wilczek has argued for something similar to this point of view. Here's a non-technical 'op-ed' where he discusses it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7pl5V0YU9taaXE0ZWJNRzlHNlU/view?resourcekey=0-I89mlfGyRyO3OqorLU38-g https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7pl5V0YU9taaXE0ZWJNRzlHNlU...