Aether Physics Still Alive?

[Maine farmer]

I just came across something called the Quantum Aether Dynamics Institute, and I wonder if anyone here has heard of them.

[CraigD]

I recall having come across these ideas a while back. According to the ever-so-valuable archive.org, a website about it, quantumaetherdynamics.org, been around since Jan 2010, though a fairly rare print book “Secrets of the Aether: Unified Force Theory, Dark Matter and Consciousness”, was published in 2007.

 

It appears to be the brainchild of a David W Thompson III, AKA “Aetherwizard”. From a quick read of his thinking, which seems to center around the idea that space is composed of “aether units”, self-description like this:

His background in physics is largely self taught as a result of logic disagreements with former science teachers. In Thomson's view, all physics should lend themselves to common sense and avoid the nonsense-speak prevalent in mainstream physics circles.

...

Immediately after first publishing his ideas, he discovered the physics establishment is overrun with irrational academics who are more insistent on keeping the foundations of their education in place than on actual scientific progress.

...

Realizing from firsthand experience how money and the politics of science controlled the scientific establishment, Thomson regrouped and stepped out of the limelight to build a better laboratory, which is equipped with video facilities. His strategy is now to bypass the scientific establishment altogether and go straight to the public through media channels. Basically, his strategy has turned to crowd sourcing and to dissolve the intense academic arrogance that impedes the progress of human-kind, not only in physics, but in all areas of life.

and some writing of his about developing “metaphysical abilities” though “conductance yoga”, I concluded that Thompson is a crank, and his ideas, while weirdly entertaining, of little to no scientific value.

[Maine farmer]

 

..., I concluded that Thompson is a crank, and his ideas, while weirdly entertaining, of little to no scientific value.

 

There is just something appealing about a dynamic aether!   One could argue that the concept of space - time being the medium for electromagnetic waves is just a more precise definition of the aether, and, of course, if there were an aether, it would have to be dynamic. 

 

There is also something appealing about good cranks.  The question for me is, is he a good crank, or just plain nuts?

[CraigD]

There is just something appealing about a dynamic aether!

I’m not sure what “dynamic aether” means.

 

A quick internet search for a definition found this Encyclopedia Nomadica article which says

All theories of a dynamic Aether accept the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment, the lack of Aether drag, and explain that null result by the properties of a massless or massfree Aether.

This website isn’t really an encyclopedia, but appears to me a site dedicated to fringe ideas like those of Wilhelm Reich and Nicola Tesla, with just a handful of articles, but it’s the only reference I could find giving any sort of definition of “dynamic aether”. I found the page I linked to a good read, mostly on the history of various ideas bandying the word “aether”.

 

By E. Nomadica’s definition, Thompson’s “quantum aether dynamic” theory isn’t a dynamic aether theory, but a classical aether one, because it doesn’t accept he null M-M experiment result, but dismisses it as an incorrect interpretation. Thompson is, I think, a “M-M experiment denialists”, a fairly common kind of physics crank. This leaves it to, as stated in its “A New Foundation for Physics”, accepting gravity-related parts of Einsteinian relativity, but rejecting the velocity-related part of it (Special Relativity).

 

What’s your definition of “dynamic aether”, Farming Guy? I like the E. Nomadica’s, though I think “relativistic aether” is a better term, because by accepting the results of the MM experiment, they must accept Special Relativity’s postulate of the constancy of the speed of light regardless of the motion of the light source and observer.

 

One of the appeals of aether theories are that agree with our common-sense intuition, gleaned from everyday experience with waves that require a medium, like sound and ocean waves. A relativistic aether, though, feels weirder and less intuitive to me than simply thinking of light as requiring no medium. When you taking away the helpful analogy to sound and ocean waves to EM radiation in a classical, non-relativistic aether, you’re left with an aether with a more philosophical than mechanical feel to it, the “imponderable” aether of Anaxagoras, Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz described in the E. Nomadica arcicle, that’s practically equivalent to “the laws of physics” that Einstein famously called “Spinoza’s God”. While an attractive, even beautiful philosophical idea, such an aether doesn’t give much to useful scientific theories.

 

There is also something appealing about good cranks. The question for me is, is he a good crank, or just plain nuts?

I don’t think Thompson and people like him are insane, or their motivation difficult to understand or empathize with. Like me, and I think nearly all people, they want reality to feel intuitively sensible. There they differ from people like me who try to understand reality by studying science in schools, books and papers, is that rather than try to gain familiarity with the most accepted science until it begins to make intuitive sense, they reject it, and try to make new scientific theories that feel intuitively sensible from the beginning. One consequence of this difference is that where I admire and somewhat idolize professional scientists, they see scientists and schools as close-minded conformists bent on suppressing new ideas, sometimes to the point of feeling personally persecuted. Thomson seems to have fallen into this mildly paranoid manner of thinking, writing stuff like

Immediately after first publishing his [Thompson’s] ideas, he discovered the physics establishment is overrun with irrational academics who are more insistent on keeping the foundations of their education in place than on actual scientific progress. While in London, UK to present his theory at the PIRT 2006 conference at Imperial College, Stephen Weinberg, the noted physicist who received a Nobel Prize for his so-called "Electroweak" theory, attended with no other intention than to reschedule Thomson's speaking engagement for just after lunch and then inviting the whole conference to a lunch that extended into Thomson's speaking time.

[Maine farmer]

 

What’s your definition of “dynamic aether”, Farming Guy? I like the E. Nomadica’s, though I think “relativistic aether” is a better term, because by accepting the results of the MM experiment, they must accept Special Relativity’s postulate of the constancy of the speed of light regardless of the motion of the light source and observer.

 

 

 

Now that you've mentioned it, "relativistic aether " has a good ring to it!

 

I was thinking of a dynamic aether as apposed to a static one.  I can imagine it would be curved by gravity, and it would be interactive with matter and energy in ways that produce observed relativistic and quantum properties.

 

Kind of fun to think about and try to visualize when I'm working in the barn with my body on autopilot while my mind wanders.

[superpsycho]

I just came across something called the Quantum Aether Dynamics Institute, and I wonder if anyone here has heard of them.

The term Aether fell out of favor after some attempts to prove its existence failed. The problem was the properties they ascribed to it more then the idea of the void existing and having properties. The void does have dimensions, so it is not nothing. It shouldn't really matter if you call it the void, space or Aether. Sooner or later its properties will have to be dealt with.

 

As far as your Quantum AetherDynamics, I'm doubt that theory is going to fly.

Edited August 14, 2016 by superpsycho