Aether - Revision history

ClaudeBot: Add Four Motions source link for the de Hilster criticism

2026-07-20T18:15:34Z

Add Four Motions source link for the de Hilster criticism

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:15, 20 July 2026
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	== External links ==		== External links ==

			* [https://fourmotions.org/why-aether-is-a-poor-model-for-light-and-what-does-better/ "Why Aether Is a Poor Model for Light – and What Does Better"] – [[David de Hilster]]'s criticism of the aether, Four Motions, 2026
	* [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Physical_Lines_of_Force Maxwell, "On Physical Lines of Force" (1861–62)] — the paper in which the vortex-sea model is constructed		* [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Physical_Lines_of_Force Maxwell, "On Physical Lines of Force" (1861–62)] — the paper in which the vortex-sea model is constructed
	* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22579 Oliver Lodge, ''The Ether of Space'' (1909)] — a classic statement of the pre-relativistic position		* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22579 Oliver Lodge, ''The Ether of Space'' (1909)] — a classic statement of the pre-relativistic position

ClaudeBot: Add David de Hilster's general criticism of the aether (container problem, coherent light) from Four Motions, 2026

2026-07-20T18:14:27Z

Add David de Hilster's general criticism of the aether (container problem, coherent light) from Four Motions, 2026

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:14, 20 July 2026
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	This wiki documents dissent, not a doctrine, and the aether has serious critics among its own contributors.		This wiki documents dissent, not a doctrine, and the aether has serious critics among its own contributors.

	[[Curtis E Renshaw]] rejects the medium outright, treating the whole Fizeau-to-Sagnac experimental family in "Fresnel, Fitzeau, Hoek, Michelson-Morley, Michelson-Gale and Sagnac in Aetherless Galilean Space" (1996) and "Light Speed and Aether" (2000) from a Galilean standpoint that requires no aether at all. [[Robert de Hilster]] and [[David de Hilster]]'s Particle Model gives light, gravity, magnetism and electricity a physical basis by means of particles rather than a medium, and the wiki's literature contains an explicit comparison of the two approaches; the argument made there is that the aether is not the only way to give light physicality, and that the dissident slogan "the aether was wrongly abandoned" begs the question against the alternatives. [[Jeff Alford]] examined what he regards as the logical inconsistencies of the all-pervading ether hypothesis. [[Thomas E Phipps]], as noted above, was sceptical of the drift claims. [[Ronald R Hatch]] rejects entrainment, and [[Harold Aspden]] and [[Theodore D Mitsopoulos]] both wrote replies to [[Harold W Milnes\|Harold Willis Milnes]]'s "nine objections to the aether," which is itself a reminder that the objections were being pressed from within this community and not only from outside it.		[[Curtis E Renshaw]] rejects the medium outright, treating the whole Fizeau-to-Sagnac experimental family in "Fresnel, Fitzeau, Hoek, Michelson-Morley, Michelson-Gale and Sagnac in Aetherless Galilean Space" (1996) and "Light Speed and Aether" (2000) from a Galilean standpoint that requires no aether at all. [[Robert de Hilster]] and [[David de Hilster]]'s Particle Model gives light, gravity, magnetism and electricity a physical basis by means of particles rather than a medium, and the wiki's literature contains an explicit comparison of the two approaches; the argument made there is that the aether is not the only way to give light physicality, and that the dissident slogan "the aether was wrongly abandoned" begs the question against the alternatives.

			David de Hilster set out the objection in general terms in "Why Aether Is a Poor Model for Light – and What Does Better" (''Four Motions'', 7 April 2026). He raises three difficulties. The first he calls the container problem: every medium we actually observe carrying waves is held together by something – gravity confines the atmosphere, Coulomb forces bind a crystal lattice – whereas nothing is offered to confine an aether filling open space. "What contains the luminic aether in space?", he asks; "there is no answer." Without such a constraint, he argues, a particulate or fluid aether should simply disperse. The second is that the conditions which make familiar media work are precisely the conditions absent between the stars: the aether hypothesis, on his reading, "borrows the intuition from one physical situation and quietly ignores the constraints that make that situation possible." The third is behavioural: coherent, directed and polarised light propagating over astronomical distances is, he contends, "deeply awkward for a medium-based model."

			In place of a medium he points to his father's account of light as luminic motion – waves of particles travelling together through space – which he argues supplies a visualisable physical model, dissolves the wave-particle problem, and does so without positing an uncontained invisible substance. He directs the same criticism at [[Glenn Borchardt]]'s Infinite Universe Theory, which defends an aether while, in de Hilster's view, overlooking this alternative. The disagreement is a live one inside this community rather than a quarrel with the mainstream: all parties reject the empty space of relativity, and differ over what should replace it. [[Jeff Alford]] examined what he regards as the logical inconsistencies of the all-pervading ether hypothesis. [[Thomas E Phipps]], as noted above, was sceptical of the drift claims. [[Ronald R Hatch]] rejects entrainment, and [[Harold Aspden]] and [[Theodore D Mitsopoulos]] both wrote replies to [[Harold W Milnes\|Harold Willis Milnes]]'s "nine objections to the aether," which is itself a reminder that the objections were being pressed from within this community and not only from outside it.

	== Researchers on this wiki ==		== Researchers on this wiki ==

ClaudeBot: Link researchers named in the criticism section; pipe Milnes to his actual page title

2026-07-20T18:13:20Z

Link researchers named in the criticism section; pipe Milnes to his actual page title

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:13, 20 July 2026
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	This wiki documents dissent, not a doctrine, and the aether has serious critics among its own contributors.		This wiki documents dissent, not a doctrine, and the aether has serious critics among its own contributors.

	[[Curtis E Renshaw]] rejects the medium outright, treating the whole Fizeau-to-Sagnac experimental family in "Fresnel, Fitzeau, Hoek, Michelson-Morley, Michelson-Gale and Sagnac in Aetherless Galilean Space" (1996) and "Light Speed and Aether" (2000) from a Galilean standpoint that requires no aether at all. [[Robert de Hilster]] and [[David de Hilster]]'s Particle Model gives light, gravity, magnetism and electricity a physical basis by means of particles rather than a medium, and the wiki's literature contains an explicit comparison of the two approaches; the argument made there is that the aether is not the only way to give light physicality, and that the dissident slogan "the aether was wrongly abandoned" begs the question against the alternatives. Jeff Alford examined what he regards as the logical inconsistencies of the all-pervading ether hypothesis. Thomas E Phipps, as noted above, was sceptical of the drift claims. Ronald R Hatch rejects entrainment, and Harold Aspden and Theodore D Mitsopoulos both wrote replies to Harold Willis Milnes's "nine objections to the aether," which is itself a reminder that the objections were being pressed from within this community and not only from outside it.		[[Curtis E Renshaw]] rejects the medium outright, treating the whole Fizeau-to-Sagnac experimental family in "Fresnel, Fitzeau, Hoek, Michelson-Morley, Michelson-Gale and Sagnac in Aetherless Galilean Space" (1996) and "Light Speed and Aether" (2000) from a Galilean standpoint that requires no aether at all. [[Robert de Hilster]] and [[David de Hilster]]'s Particle Model gives light, gravity, magnetism and electricity a physical basis by means of particles rather than a medium, and the wiki's literature contains an explicit comparison of the two approaches; the argument made there is that the aether is not the only way to give light physicality, and that the dissident slogan "the aether was wrongly abandoned" begs the question against the alternatives. [[Jeff Alford]] examined what he regards as the logical inconsistencies of the all-pervading ether hypothesis. [[Thomas E Phipps]], as noted above, was sceptical of the drift claims. [[Ronald R Hatch]] rejects entrainment, and [[Harold Aspden]] and [[Theodore D Mitsopoulos]] both wrote replies to [[Harold W Milnes\|Harold Willis Milnes]]'s "nine objections to the aether," which is itself a reminder that the objections were being pressed from within this community and not only from outside it.

	== Researchers on this wiki ==		== Researchers on this wiki ==

ClaudeBot: Link researcher names in the Researchers on this wiki directory section

2026-07-20T18:12:38Z

Link researcher names in the Researchers on this wiki directory section

ClaudeBot: Rewrite stub into full topic article: eight competing aether model families, experimental record, relativity, wiki researchers and 137 papers

2026-07-20T18:01:34Z

Rewrite stub into full topic article: eight competing aether model families, experimental record, relativity, wiki researchers and 137 papers

Show changes

DTombe at 17:47, 17 December 2022

2022-12-17T17:47:48Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:47, 17 December 2022
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	Quoting Nikola Tesla from his 1907 paper “Man’s Greatest Achievement” which was published in 1930 in the Milwaukee Sentinel,		Quoting Nikola Tesla from his 1907 paper “Man’s Greatest Achievement” which was published in 1930 in the Milwaukee Sentinel,

	''“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the Ākāśa or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance”'',		''“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the Ākāśa or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance”'',

	this idea was continued into James Clerk Maxwell's seminal paper "On Physical Lines of Force" which he wrote in 1861, in which he demonstrated that light is a transverse propagation of electric and magnetic waves in a sea of aethereal vortices. While this idea was still being published as recently as 1937, as seen from another quote from the "Ether (in Physics)" article in the 1937 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which reads (in connection with the speed of light),		this idea was continued into James Clerk Maxwell's seminal paper "On Physical Lines of Force" which he wrote in 1861, in which he demonstrated that light is a transverse propagation of electric and magnetic waves in a sea of aethereal vortices. While this idea was still being published as recently as 1937, as seen from another quote from the "Ether (in Physics)" article in the 1937 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which reads (in connection with the speed of light),

DTombe at 12:56, 17 December 2022

2022-12-17T12:56:50Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:56, 17 December 2022
Line 1:		Line 1:
	Quoting Nikola Tesla from his 1907 paper “Man’s Greatest Achievement” which was published in 1930 in the Milwaukee Sentinel,		Quoting Nikola Tesla from his 1907 paper “Man’s Greatest Achievement” which was published in 1930 in the Milwaukee Sentinel,

	''“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the ~~Akasha~~ or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance”'',		''“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the Ākāśa or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance”'',

	this idea was continued into James Clerk Maxwell's seminal paper "On Physical Lines of Force" which he wrote in 1861, in which he demonstrated that light is a transverse propagation of electric and magnetic waves in a sea of aethereal vortices. While this idea was still being published as recently as 1937, as seen from another quote from the "Ether (in Physics)" article in the 1937 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which reads (in connection with the speed of light),		this idea was continued into James Clerk Maxwell's seminal paper "On Physical Lines of Force" which he wrote in 1861, in which he demonstrated that light is a transverse propagation of electric and magnetic waves in a sea of aethereal vortices. While this idea was still being published as recently as 1937, as seen from another quote from the "Ether (in Physics)" article in the 1937 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which reads (in connection with the speed of light),

DTombe: O’Neill, John J., “PRODIGAL GENIUS, Biography of Nikola Tesla”, Long Island, New York, 15th July 1944

2019-05-14T10:58:04Z

O’Neill, John J., “PRODIGAL GENIUS, Biography of Nikola Tesla”, Long Island, New York, 15th July 1944

New page

Quoting Nikola Tesla from his 1907 paper “Man’s Greatest Achievement” which was published in 1930 in the Milwaukee Sentinel,

''“Long ago he (mankind) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space - the Akasha or luminiferous ether - which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance”'',

this idea was continued into James Clerk Maxwell's seminal paper "On Physical Lines of Force" which he wrote in 1861, in which he demonstrated that light is a transverse propagation of electric and magnetic waves in a sea of aethereal vortices. While this idea was still being published as recently as 1937, as seen from another quote from the "Ether (in Physics)" article in the 1937 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which reads (in connection with the speed of light),

''“The most probable surmise or guess at present is that the ether is a perfectly incompressible continuous fluid, in a state of fine-grained vortex motion, circulating with that same enormous speed. For it has been partly, though as yet incompletely, shown that such a vortex fluid would transmit waves of the same general nature as light waves— i.e., periodic disturbances across the line of propagation—and would transmit them at a rate of the same order of magnitude as the vortex or circulation speed”'',

the idea lapsed after the second world war.

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:12, 20 July 2026
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	== Researchers on this wiki ==		== Researchers on this wiki ==

	* David Tombe — British independent researcher; the wiki's most prolific writer on the aether as a dense electron-positron "electric sea," and on the historical reconstruction of Maxwell's original equations.		* [[David Tombe]] — British independent researcher; the wiki's most prolific writer on the aether as a dense electron-positron "electric sea," and on the historical reconstruction of Maxwell's original equations.
	* John-Erik Persson — Swedish researcher; the leading advocate here of an entrained aether, arguing from stellar aberration, the Sagnac effect and GPS.		* [[John-Erik Persson]] — Swedish researcher; the leading advocate here of an entrained aether, arguing from stellar aberration, the Sagnac effect and GPS.
	* Joseph Levy — French theorist; author of the multi-volume ''Ether Space-Time and Cosmology'' material, developing a preferred-frame aether that is explicitly ''not'' dragged by celestial bodies.		* [[Joseph Levy]] — French theorist; author of the multi-volume ''Ether Space-Time and Cosmology'' material, developing a preferred-frame aether that is explicitly ''not'' dragged by celestial bodies.
	* Ionel Dinu — Romanian physicist and experimentalist; fluid-mechanical aether theory backed by his own underwater rotating-cylinder experiments.		* [[Ionel Dinu]] — Romanian physicist and experimentalist; fluid-mechanical aether theory backed by his own underwater rotating-cylinder experiments.
	* Ronald R Hatch — American satellite-navigation engineer, designer of the Hatch filter and past President of the Institute of Navigation; Modified Lorentzian Ether Theory, and a firm critic of aether drag.		* [[Ronald R Hatch]] — American satellite-navigation engineer, designer of the Hatch filter and past President of the Institute of Navigation; Modified Lorentzian Ether Theory, and a firm critic of aether drag.
	* Harold Aspden — British physicist and IBM patent director; a dynamic aether structured as a fluid crystal lattice, developed over four decades.		* [[Harold Aspden]] — British physicist and IBM patent director; a dynamic aether structured as a fluid crystal lattice, developed over four decades.
	* Steven Rado — Hungarian-American author of ''Aethro-Kinematics''; the ideal-gas aether worked out systematically from kinetic theory.		* [[Steven Rado]] — Hungarian-American author of ''Aethro-Kinematics''; the ideal-gas aether worked out systematically from kinetic theory.
	* William R Jones — American industrial engineer; particulate "gravitino" ether, with an award-winning essay in the push-gravity tradition.		* [[William R Jones]] — American industrial engineer; particulate "gravitino" ether, with an award-winning essay in the push-gravity tradition.
	* Ludwig Kostro — Polish historian and philosopher of science; the standard documentation of Einstein's post-1916 return to an ether concept.		* [[Ludwig Kostro]] — Polish historian and philosopher of science; the standard documentation of Einstein's post-1916 return to an ether concept.
	* Alexander L Kholmetskii — Belarusian physicist; the formal theory of covariant ether theories and the search for phenomena that would distinguish them from special relativity.		* [[Alexander L Kholmetskii]] — Belarusian physicist; the formal theory of covariant ether theories and the search for phenomena that would distinguish them from special relativity.
	* Francis Viren Fernandes — Indian biochemist and independent theorist; the "186-ether" programme unifying gravity and electromagnetism.		* [[Francis Viren Fernandes]] — Indian biochemist and independent theorist; the "186-ether" programme unifying gravity and electromagnetism.
	* John E Chappell — American historian of science and founder of the [[Natural Philosophy Alliance]]; the functional definition of the aether, and the historical study of Sagnac.		* [[John E Chappell]] — American historian of science and founder of the [[Natural Philosophy Alliance]]; the functional definition of the aether, and the historical study of Sagnac.
	* James DeMeo — American biophysicist; the Reichian energetic-aether tradition and the defence of Miller's drift results.		* [[James DeMeo]] — American biophysicist; the Reichian energetic-aether tradition and the defence of Miller's drift results.
	* Menahem Simhony — Israeli physicist; the epola electron-positron lattice model of space.		* [[Menahem Simhony]] — Israeli physicist; the epola electron-positron lattice model of space.
	* Ching-Chuan Su — Taiwanese professor of electrical engineering; the nested local-ether model and Quantum Electromagnetics.		* [[Ching-Chuan Su]] — Taiwanese professor of electrical engineering; the nested local-ether model and Quantum Electromagnetics.
	* Duncan W Shaw — Canadian judge turned physical theorist; the "flowing aether" account of gravity, electromagnetism and entanglement.		* [[Duncan W Shaw]] — Canadian judge turned physical theorist; the "flowing aether" account of gravity, electromagnetism and entanglement.
	* Franco Selleri — Italian theoretical physicist; inertial transformations and the recovery of the Lorentz ether.		* [[Franco Selleri]] — Italian theoretical physicist; inertial transformations and the recovery of the Lorentz ether.
	* Valery P Dmitriyev — Russian theorist; both turbulent-fluid and solid-substratum models of the medium.		* [[Valery P Dmitriyev]] — Russian theorist; both turbulent-fluid and solid-substratum models of the medium.
	* Athanassios A Nassikas — Greek engineer; the minimum-contradictions space-time ether.		* [[Athanassios A Nassikas]] — Greek engineer; the minimum-contradictions space-time ether.
	* James Marsen — American engineer; the Tron Theory and the proposal to fly a Michelson-Morley experiment into orbit.		* [[James Marsen]] — American engineer; the Tron Theory and the proposal to fly a Michelson-Morley experiment into orbit.

	== Papers on this wiki ==		== Papers on this wiki ==