Is there an aether?

[omnivorr]

avandonk...your point is?

can you tell when the yams 200 miles away will be fit to eat?..where you'll find the water along the journey? ...how to teach your children to remember these vital facts? ..."received wisdom" has its limits.. whether photospectometry or "what day is best to fill your petrol-tank?".. just like domain theory of magnetism or electron spin.. these, and all, are ABSTRACTS.. do you have a Large Hadron Collider in your kitchen??... no, you have a TV or web-browser... mebe you have access to your employers infrastructure.. but when you rinse it, .. ya nappy's just the same as any .... so you can read "Oz 'lectronics today" and buy commodity IC's from DSE... ....phrenology was THE "science" of its day....
.......but what IS it that you're actually decrying here??

....I learned to drive in a 3ton Dodge "the gears are in there--somewhere--just matchya revs".... synchro wat?? ... bridle yer emotions mate, then tell us where yer so adamantly planting yer feets... yer stirrups in a twist.. that high-horse yer on is off its rocker til ya do..

[Kokatha man]

Hi Bert - I've re-read your last posting below and am not sure whether this is a personal diatribe against all that have contributed to this thread or a specific response group.

I am confused: Alex said - "It seems the Greeks had an idea that space was made up of an aether which from what I can tell semed to be their way of saying space comprised of many particles....."

and then you say Bert - "Alex is dead right about the aether as usual they do not understand! It was shown to not exist by the Michelson Morley experiment. Google it I am not your Physics lecturer!"..... followed by the post with..."Anyway to get back to the point the aether does not exist....." which makes me even more confused (perhaps that was meant to read "...point that aether does not exist..." or whatever - I don't resile from anything I've posted , nor do I think it makes me a candidate for the basic physics book "must read" role.......

But perhaps I've been posting on this forum for too long today after last night (I'm very tired)

ps - (1) I can design and build a simple amplifier - valve, transistor or IC

(2) Can do the gearbox job but won't fix yours Bert - fact is I was under the car with the auto trans half out during our searing heatwave but had to call it quits and bring in the specialist - dang, if I'd built that pulse generator tester from all my old man's gear I disposed of I could've done the whole thing myself

(3) Naturally: the dunny was the worst when the bowl literally split asunder about 3 months ago - and wanting to preserve the tile flooring etc and some vestige of my bank balance I had to do the lot myself

(4) Yes: had to diagnose the failure of the Hall Effect tranny in the Missus's unit a while ago and save us a bundle by finding the $30 Siemens equivalent to press fit in, instead of the $300 "auto spare parts" one

(5) No re the spectrophotometer, but have a generalized understanding of the principals and mechanics, and reckon if I'd had the appropriate training etc it'd be a doddle

(6) Of course, grew up with electronics with my ol' man - but I'd hafta say that todays' units are mostly all cards and thro-aways internally

(7) So could I.....

(8) I believe the same as you re the "financial idiots".....

Anyways, me missus just came in to acknowledge my "know-all" status and ask me to fix something else; so' I'd best be getting on....!

Cheers, Darryl.

[Dog Star (Phil)]

What's the bet that right now Alex is rolling about on the floor, holding his sides so as not to burst from laughing? Yet another great IIS thread! I blame my own lack of intelligence for failing to understand exactly what Bert was on about though.

[skwinty (Steve)]

Originally Posted by Dog Star

What's the bet that right now Alex is rolling about on the floor, holding his sides so as not to burst from laughing? Yet another great IIS thread! I blame my own lack of intelligence for failing to understand exactly what Bert was on about though.

Perhaps it should be Bert for goodness sake Avabonk

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by skwinty

I assume you consider yourself excluded from this bunch.

I feel for Bert....as the old saying goes...It is much better to keep your mouth shut and let people believe you are a fool than to open it and confirm the fact...

That said, we are not all as foolish as he may think....the 10 point challenge was laughable.

1) prefer valves as they don't clip, 2) spent more time pulling syncro cones out of my '69 Fiat 124, 5 speed box that driving that heap of sh.. 3) all three and them some 4) aligned quite a few self guiding spectorgraphs....etc. etc. We are not all dill's.

The Michelson-Morley experiment was a pivotal result which helped Einstein to ponder special relativity....and later general relativity. The aether does not exist. If it did your Tom Tom GPS's wouldn't work very well nor would the strap down laser gyro's in B747's.

We could design an experiment that may detect the tooth fairy, if it fails should we still think she's out there? Nothing abstract here. Move along.

[omnivorr]

than an unproven hypothesis..

"We could design an experiment that may detect the tooth fairy, if it fails should we still think she's out there? Nothing abstract here. Move along."

...had the atom been split when Einstein postulated the most famous equation in our cultures history?... or did that fairy later render your argument toothless?

...the problem begins when ancilliary functional entities contort their own importance with respect to the corporate "mission".. it's known as the janitor-complex, but as equally applies to nuclear physicists as any other.....

...the abstract is rarely a mere quantum to fit an overall or labcoat pocket..
....Einstein had his revelation looking out a tram window.... he was no smug commutor.... much less some incompetent crowd-mover .

[skwinty (Steve)]

[quote=Peter Ward;309501]The Michelson-Morley experiment was a pivotal result which helped Einstein to ponder special relativity....and later general relativity.
quote]
To add to this is a little known fact that Einstein built on a little known theory of Galileos called the Theory of Relativity.
Okay, Galileo was Italian and not Greek

[Alchemy (Clive)]

is there an aether...........

time, energy, motion, matter, space and ..... thats about it for the physical universe.

[Zuts]

[QUOTE=skwinty;309506]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

The Michelson-Morley experiment was a pivotal result which helped Einstein to ponder special relativity....and later general relativity.
quote]
To add to this is a little known fact that Einstein built on a little known theory of Galileos called the Theory of Relativity.
Okay, Galileo was Italian and not Greek

Hi,

Yes, we should all recognise the work of these geniuses, however the fact is that Galileo postdates the ancient greeks by a few thousand years and if you want to talk about a Golden Age of science if you count all the scientists at work in the late 19th and 20th centuries then the total you arrive at would far surpass many times over the entire population of ancient Greece and Italy in galieo's time.

So yes, the work of the ancients can be held in awe but it should be seen in perspective of the huge body of work created in modern times.

Paul

[rally]

Dare I wade into the quagmire ?

As I recall it the Michelson-Morley experiment set out to prove there was an aether/ether that specifically travelled in a particular constant direction.

They failed to prove that this was the case, although a later experiment performed with more modern technology I read about some years ago did come up with some anomalies that appeared to relate to either the rotation of the earth, the moons orbit or its orbit around the sun (can't recall now).

However there definitely is an ether or flux of sorts.

At any given point (and depending on where you are) there are either sub atomic particles - neutrinos (particles), "photons" (particles or waves ? - nobody can make up their mind so they take an each way bet), gamma rays etc etc and other EM radiation (and anything else we haven't yet detected - that the new super collider might ?) travelling in all directions, including through the planet - so such a 'flux' exists and could easily be construed as an ether.

Just not the exact type that Michelson and Morley sought to find.

Rally

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

The Michelson-Morley experiment was a pivotal result which helped Einstein to ponder special relativity....and later general relativity. The aether does not exist. If it did your Tom Tom GPS's wouldn't work very well nor would the strap down laser gyro's in B747's.

Peter,

I hope those GPS's are corrected for frame drag effect.

Steven

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by Dog Star

What's the bet that right now Alex is rolling about on the floor, holding his sides so as not to burst from laughing? Yet another great IIS thread! I blame my own lack of intelligence for failing to understand exactly what Bert was on about though.

Hi DS - I've been laughing through the whole lot too; but I think, given your posting, from an ever slightly different perspective than your own!

Alex's "starter" certainly fired Zuts to give us his two-bob's worth and frankly, though it could be construed as steering "off-topic" - my contributions were really gentle (hopefully) admonitions along the "baby in the bath-water" lines, directed at Paul.

Alex (imho) was postulating the Ancient Greek concept of the existence of "aether" as analogous to a determination, in the link article he provided, description of "The universe is awash in a sea of neutrinos..."

Whether he was merely "fishing" for his own amusement or otherwise was of no import to me whatsoever: I confess that I make "fair game" of whatever element or aspect of an open discourse I care to make!

However, notwithstanding the somewhat pedantic nature of my particular proclivities; I do insist upon an iota or two of intelligible grammar when one contributes to a debate (regardless of one's patois) - on the basis that, say in this particular instance; Bert first says he agrees with Alex, and then contradicts (from logical presumption) in his next sentence, the very premise that Alex has just put!

Subsequent comments by Bert could have easily been construed as bordering on the offensive; but I think that everyone involved took it in the spirit of "vigorous, open debate."

What you may possibly have missed, Dog Star, in your "blaming yourself for your own lack of intelligence for failing to understand exactly what Bert was on about" was, apart from the dry repartee within Peter's response and the somewhat coarser "therapy advice" humour of skwinty's; the (imho) deliciously elegant prose, humour and textual construct within omnivorr's response!

I like Bert, he's like me, a bit full of himself; but Bert, me ol' china, there's one or two things us particular types of fellas have allways got to keep in mind when we impart our (self) importance to the masses: grammar-wise we've actually got to be able to appear compos mentis, and there has to be a good, old fashioned, liberal-sprinkling of humility to our mien!

That's more than enough semantic discourse/dissection for me on this topic, except to say that if this aforementioned "sea of neutrinos" is seen by some as the ancient aether; I for one am perfectly at ease with their perspective!

Language, and the ability to organize and communicate our thought processes; is by far our most powerfull tool: cf the destruction of languages apropos the subjugation of cultures to illustrate this point.

Regards, Darryl.

[Dog Star (Phil)]

G'day Kokatha Man, have been enjoying your posts. Not a lot of humour gets past me but I think some of mine may slip past unoticed at times. My lack of intelligence ran aground on the broken grammar and stream of consciousness style of Bert's posts and in trying to decode exactly which camp he'd decided to boil the billy in. No offence Bert, but I don't think I was the only one. Even good mate Kokatha Man found some contradictory statements and head scratching elements there. Oops! Probably shouldn't have mentioned "elements."

[Kokatha man]

Hi DS - are you serious or Sirius, or just being the cheeky Pup? I like Bert too - ever since he agreed with me in that Galileo thread, and quoted Nelson M: heck, someone like that's gotta be ok in my books!

As I said, regardless of original intent; I reckon laughing gas, rather than (a)ether, is the order of the day!

Cheers, Darryl.

[Dog Star (Phil)]

Pity we live so far apart, Darryl. Reckon we'd enjoy blowing the froth off a couple of cold ones. BTW, just how far apart are Sirius and Puppis?

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by Dog Star

Pity we live so far apart, Darryl. Reckon we'd enjoy blowing the froth off a couple of cold ones. BTW, just how far apart are Sirius and Puppis?

Now, now Dog Star, you and I both know, as dog owners, that wherever you'll find a Big Dog (Canis Major) you'll allways find a Poop (Puppis.)

My genteel and sheltered upbringing makes me refrain from any more uncouth language on that subject; so I will pretend that you're asking another AA fella a reasonable and polite question about the distance between Sirius and The Pup - about 8 seconds, I think.

Cheers DS, Darryl.

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by Kokatha man

Now, now Dog Star, you and I both know, as dog owners, that wherever you'll find a Big Dog (Canis Major) you'll allways find a Poop (Puppis.)

My genteel and sheltered upbringing makes me refrain from any more uncouth language on that subject; so I will pretend that you're asking another AA fella a reasonable and polite question about the distance between Sirius and The Pup - about 8 seconds, I think.

Cheers DS, Darryl.

Just in case this line of discussion "runs" away from the topic too far Dog Star, I thought I'd best clarify a few points of misconception re that Poop next to the Big Dog.

Some ill-informed people think that this resulted from the carve-up of a former enormous constellation known as the "Ship" - but as you may educe from my typing, this was actually a typo!

Argo was, as the name would automatically suggest to anyone with a modicum of nous, actually a dog too; so there is considerable speculation amongst astro-theorist as to the actual causal origins of this gigantic celestial "specimen."

Naturally, precessionists tend to automatically "dump" on this, given their particular "bag" - but though light-shift analysis may "sample" possibilities, there are no other significant "movements" in this region of the sky.

Further to this, there is no evidence that either Pluto nor Uranus have had any impact on the region by their (unlikely) presence therein, despite what cahullian may or may not have inferred in the "since the IAU decision to demote Pluto..." thread!

Hope this clears the matter up DS - and by the way Bert, on another note; looking at all that paraphenalia hanging off your scope, I'm expecting a much, much better Jewel Box image next time: if not the AAASPCDI* may very well confiscate your equipment for cruelty to defenseless mounts!

Cheers, Darryl.

*Australian Amateur Astronomers' Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Dumb Instruments

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by omnivorr

....Einstein had his revelation looking out a tram window.... he was no smug commutor.... much less some incompetent crowd-mover .

I suspect Albert did *commute* to the patent office.

As for my people mover status....a thinly veiled insult.... but true to a point....as I regulary move several hundred people along at about Mach 0.86 and some 6500 nautical...oddly enough often using a GPS AND ring-laser gyro's....thinking of which..

General relativity predicts that the atomic clocks at GPS orbital altitudes will tick faster by about 45,900 ns/day because they are in a weaker gravitational field than atomic clocks on Earth's surface.

Special Relativity (SR) predicts that atomic clocks moving at GPS orbital speeds will tick slower by about 7,200 ns/day than stationary ground clocks.

The satellite clocks are reset in rate before launch to compensate for these predicted effects.... now if there were an aether the above GPS corrections simply wouldn't hold. Yet they match theory *extremely* well.

Our TomTom's work and we find the nearest Pizza Hut and LAX runway 25L appears out of the fog, and we all breath a sigh of relief.

Who said Physics wasn't cool

[avandonk]

Quote

"I like Bert, he's like me, a bit full of himself; but Bert, me ol' china, there's one or two things us particular types of fellas have allways got to keep in mind when we impart our (self) importance to the masses: grammar-wise we've actually got to be able to appear compos mentis, and there has to be a good, old fashioned, liberal-sprinkling of humility to our mien!"

Kokatha man

Point taken on board!

I am a bit like the Bishop who was very proud of his book on humility. Sloppy grammar is very poor for adequate communication. I am sorry for any offense to anyone.

The post was done in haste and a bit of anger. And anyway the dog ate my homework. I think I have learned a bit.

I think I will leave it at that.

I stirred the pot without being personal. I hope.

Bert

Till next time!

[omnivorr]

" We could design an experiment that may detect the tooth fairy, if it fails should we still think she's out there? Nothing abstract here. Move along. "

my comments were directed to your statement (above quoted) in post 25.

I did not say that Einstein was not a commuter... (specifics Peter)

Please note the emphasis added by me to the above quote from your post to which I previously responded... It was with no knowledge of your "day-job" that I made my remarks, but in light -lightly at that cliche persona you assumed.

...in your last post you did not address the point I made about the fact of Einstein's theory preceeding the means to its verification... in answer to your specious "tooth Fairy" remarks.

I'm sure we are all almost as pleased with the fact that your "Tom Tom" 's are competent as you are .... or the avionics tech's are... but perhaps they don't quite so feel the need to crow about it..... after all, it's only their "day job".