T
treddie
Guest
Howdie.<br />Was growing impatient when for the umteen-millionth time have heard a "trained professional" once again mistate the facts about the Michelson/Morley experiment.<br />In his article, "Waves and Particles: Musings after the National Science Teachers Convention", Dr. Dana Backman makes the oft mentioned remark that the Theory of the Ether was disproven 125 years ago, and I would assume he is reffering to the results of this groundbreaking experiment. To recap, the Michelson/Morley experiment was designed to test if the Earth was moving through an all pervasive gas, the "ether", that was the proposed medium that light waves would need in order to travel through space. With the successful conclusion of the experiment, which demonstrated that no ether was detected, the scientists decreed that there was no ether. Back in their day, I can understand this reasoning. But only to a point, for that reasoning is scientifically flawed, for ANY moment in science history.<br />Their conclusion was, that since no ether was detected it did not exist. This is a bit of a stretch. What the experiment DOES demonstrate, and ONLY demonstrates, is that since no ether (gas) was detected, that if the ether DID exist, it did not BEHAVE like a gas, and therefore, it could be concluded, was NOT a gas. This leaves only two possible scenarios:<br /> 1. The ether does NOT exist in any form whatsoever.<br /> 2. The ether DOES exist, but is sufficiently exotic that present notions about its existence is flawed, and no reasonable, replacement hypothesis has been offered which can be tested.<br /><br />In other words, the question still remains...is there an "ether"? What ADDITIONAL knowledge PROVES that electromagnetic radiation does not need a medium through which to travel?<br /><br />-treddie