Aether Heuristics

[ToyScientist]

I like physics, but I'm not currently great at math. I read a lot and follow thought experiments, and have thought of one involving the idea of aether. One can take aether as a synonym for energy. In space where there is very little energy the aether, which I think of as fluid-like, is very dilute, or thin. Where there is a lot of matter, or a lot of energy the aether is thicker. At a singularity the aether would be dense as it could be.  So, what does the aether mean to a photon traveling through space? I think it means that the photon cannot travel  where there is no aether, because then there is no energy, and where there is no energy there is no space and no time for it to travel through. And that it is the reason for the limit of the speed of light, because as one approaches light speed one has enough energy, even with a photon's mass, to thicken the aether and produce a resistive force that stops the particle from going any faster.

 

This has the consequence that all mater is made up of aether, and further that aether, and any particle made from it would instantly become unstable outside the universe. Where there is *no* energy at all a photon would be ripped apart by the mass aether difference between the photon and the nothing. The photon should pretty much explode and spread it's aether ever outward, either forever or until it reached an equilibrium. (Can nothing have a size?)

 

I also want to make the assumption that aether cannot be created or destroyed, but it's density can vary. A consequence of this approach is that there can be no perfect vacuum within the universe because no matter how much aether one sucks from an area there is always a little more it can borrow from it's environment. The highest vacuum state is the thinnest aether and it's like a dilute dusty plasma of virtual particles and waves.

 

This was all though up after thoughts on traversable wormholes but I think it might be worth expanding.

 

Edit:

 

Aether attracts aether. Where there are two areas of high aether with a gap of lower aether there is a force produced relative to these differences. The really aetherically dense sun attracts the lower aetheric density planets towards it, the planets attract they're lower density moons, etc. Two identical masses with no momentum placed in space would attract one another. This relates to the casimir effect where two plates made of solid aether (metal) attract one another in a low aether area (vacuum). This assumes that gravity is related to the casimir effect. My desired consequence is that this means there is a reverse casimir effect, where instead of getting work out by letting the plates move, we do work on them and make the aether thinner between them and denser on the plates. This "reverse-casimir" effect could then be used to construct an aether pump conceptually capable of performing like an albecurrie drive.

Edited September 12, 2016 by ToyScientist

[GAHD]

So, you're saying in laymans terms; physical space is a non-linear optical medium of quantum vacuum fluctuations, and attributing the archaic term of aether to it. Sounds cool.

Too bad you don't do math.Here you go.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZR0sAQq050

The problem with thought experiments is that, as my current favorite mentor Lawrence Krauss would put it, "the human mind was evolved to avoid lions on the savannas, not to intuitively grasp the underlying nature of the universe." EG; It doesn't make intuitive thought experiment sense that glass is a liquid. Yet, glass *is* a liquid. Bone up on that opencourseware. Try to get yourself a copy of "Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory" by T.D. Lee.