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> The solution for both was posited to be a physical medium permeating space that had certain special properties, Light is an excitation of the EM aether — or

> The solution for both was posited to be a physical medium permeating space that had certain special properties, Light is an excitation of the EM aether — or if you prefer, “field”. (Which you then explain later, yourself.) We failed to detect the aether with MM because we’re made of aether-stuff and so we squish in a way that cancels out what they were trying to detect with the original experiment. > Current physics has nothing to do with these theories. > [explanation of how fields are aethers] Wilczek also points out modern theories are aether theories. LIGO works because it detects waves in the aether — which do not suffer from the same squishing problem as in the original experiment. But that’s why a scaled up version of the original experiment worked: we’re fundamentally detecting the same thing. Aether theories are more legitimate than dark matter theories: the MM test for the aether failed, but then they reformulated the theory and successfully observed an effect; dark matter has yet to find a working reformulation that is observable.

tsimionescu 2y ago
MM failed because there is no moving aether. Even if you want to call the EM field an aether, it is not a moving aether, and the explanation for the constancy of the speed of light has nothing to do with this aether. Other massless particles/waves also move at this constant speed, and they are not tied to the EM field(or luminiferous aether). Also, LIGO is detecting something fundamentally different from what MM was looking for. MM was trying to prove that light speed measured from the frame of reference of the Earth varies between times when the Earth is moving in the same direction as the Aether vs times the Earth is moving perpendicular to the Aether (since the Earth is orbiting the sun, and the Aether moves in a single direction, at some point in the year a beam of light sent in the same direction must pass between moving along a 0° angle and a 90° angle versus the Aether's direction). This really has nothing to do with what LIGO observed. LIGO observed waves in space-time. The equivalent waves in the EM field/luminiferous aether are called "light" and we didn't need the MM experiment to discover that they exist. So again, I agree that we can call fields "aethers", and that the EM field is in some ways similar specifically to the luminiferous aether. But it still doesn't have the property that MM were looking for: the EM field doesn't move globally, even if it fluctuates locally.
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  Yes — we have a unified approach that describes light as just an aspect of the aether, which is why I used that specific term. But much of that wasn’t known at the time the original aether theory was posited. Both MM and LIGO were looking for evidence of “the stuff waves move through” — and LIGO found it by changing the experiment, because you can’t measure our own motion because we squish, as we’re also made of aether stuff. Per wiki: > 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 in the direction of movement through the presumed aether, and the speed at right angles. You also have the MM experiment wrong — they weren’t looking for a pervasive wind, but for signal from our motion through a static aether, by looking for a difference in speed of light aligned with that motion versus perpendicular. Which is why it’s cancelled by relativity. The mistake of MM was thinking that the aether only pertained to light and matter was something else that could move through it — but it turns out everything is aether, including us.

tsimionescu 2y ago

MM failed because there is no moving aether. Even if you want to call the EM field an aether, it is not a moving aether, and the explanation for the constancy of the speed of light has nothing to do with this aether. Other massless particles/waves also move at this constant speed, and they are not tied to the EM field(or luminiferous aether). Also, LIGO is detecting something fundamentally different from what MM was looking for. MM was trying to prove that light speed measured from the frame of reference of the Earth varies between times when the Earth is moving in the same direction as the Aether vs times the Earth is moving perpendicular to the Aether (since the Earth is orbiting the sun, and the Aether moves in a single direction, at some point in the year a beam of light sent in the same direction must pass between moving along a 0° angle and a 90° angle versus the Aether's direction). This really has nothing to do with what LIGO observed. LIGO observed waves in space-time. The equivalent waves in the EM field/luminiferous aether are called "light" and we didn't need the MM experiment to discover that they exist. So again, I agree that we can call fields "aethers", and that the EM field is in some ways similar specifically to the luminiferous aether. But it still doesn't have the property that MM were looking for: the EM field doesn't move globally, even if it fluctuates locally.

zmgsabst 2y ago
Yes — we have a unified approach that describes light as just an aspect of the aether, which is why I used that specific term. But much of that wasn’t known at the time the original aether theory was posited. Both MM and LIGO were looking for evidence of “the stuff waves move through” — and LIGO found it by changing the experiment, because you can’t measure our own motion because we squish, as we’re also made of aether stuff. Per wiki: > 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 in the direction of movement through the presumed aether, and the speed at right angles. You also have the MM experiment wrong — they weren’t looking for a pervasive wind, but for signal from our motion through a static aether, by looking for a difference in speed of light aligned with that motion versus perpendicular. Which is why it’s cancelled by relativity. The mistake of MM was thinking that the aether only pertained to light and matter was something else that could move through it — but it turns out everything is aether, including us.