Yeah, I wanna talk about the aether.

[too-open-minded]

First off the Michelson and Morley experiment, if there is an aether and light is already traveling on it then why would putting light in a different medium be a viable experiment.

 

Also if there is an Aether, it doesnt mean light has to have it to travel. I'm sure when you slap a wall the energy from your slap still travels as if you slapped a body of water. The water just shows you the disturbance infront of your slaps energy. Right?

 

I'm not saying there is an aether, I just want to brainstorm and talk about it.

[swansont]

The M-M experiment didn't put light in a different medium. M-M realized that your motion wrt an absolute frame would have a different effect for the parallel and perpendicular components of light travel, and this difference could be measured as an interference effect. They set out to confirm the size of it, since it had already established that we must be moving through the ether. (From Bradley's measurement of stellar aberration in ~1725)

[too-open-minded]

Excuse me for being wrong, as usual lol.

 

bleh. maybe ill look into a book on this, any suggestions?

[Spyman]

Wikipedia is usually a good place to start out and find some basic understanding.

Figure 4. Expected differential phase shift between light traveling the longitudinal versus the transverse arms of the Michelson–Morley apparatus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MichelsonâMorley_experiment

[too-open-minded]

Well why does light propagate like a wave?

[Spyman]

And did you take my advice and checked Wikipedia before asking?

Wave–particle duality postulates that all particles exhibit both wave and particle properties. A central concept of quantum mechanics, this duality addresses the inability of classical concepts like "particle" and "wave" to fully describe the behavior of quantum-scale objects. Standard interpretations of quantum mechanics explain this paradox as a fundamental property of the Universe, while alternative interpretations explain the duality as an emergent, second-order consequence of various limitations of the observer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveâparticle_duality

[too-open-minded]

I've read that before in the search for my question, now if only I could understand it lol.

 

Im just gonna go ahead and presume that we dont really know why light propagates as a wave or if its just our perception, perceiving light that way.

[ajb]

Im just gonna go ahead and presume that we dont really know why light propagates as a wave or if its just our perception, perceiving light that way.

The reason is that classically light is a wave. Light is understood as ripples in the electromagnetic field.

[ydoaPs]

Light is understood as ripples in the electromagnetic field.

 

Thinking of it like that makes things like electron waves more intuitive given QFT.

[Dekan]

The reason is that classically light is a wave. Light is understood as ripples in the electromagnetic field.

But isn't "light" just the part of the electromagnetic field that our human eyes can see.

 

There aren't two different things - "light", and "electromagnetic field". They're the same.

 

So isn't saying: "Light is understood as ripples in the electromagnetic field", the same as saying: "Light is understood as ripples in light"

 

Does that explain anything much, except the beauty of a symmetry?

Edited December 12, 2012 by Dekan

[ydoaPs]

But isn't "light" just the part of the electromagnetic field that our human eyes can see.

There aren't two different things - "light", and "electromagnetic field". They're the same.

 

So isn't saying: "Light is understood as ripples in the electromagnetic field", the same as saying: "Light is understood as ripples in light"

 

That doesn't explain anything much, except the beauty of a symmetry.

Fields and waves aren't the same thing.

 

Is a tsunami a ripple in a tsunami?

[Dekan]

Fields and waves aren't the same thing.

 

Is a tsunami a ripple in a tsunami?

Tsunamis can be explained as ripples in the "Ocean". And the Ocean is made of water. That makes sense. A ripple, or wave propagated through a medium - oceanic water.

 

But in Quantum Theory, there's apparently nothing to wave and ripple in. No Ocean.

 

That seems silly. Surely if an electron behaves as a wave, it must have something to wave in - like the Universal Aether. How can you have a wave in nothing?

[ydoaPs]

But in Quantum Theory, there's apparently nothing to wave and ripple in. No Ocean.

The EM field is your ocean.

 

That seems silly. Surely if an electron behaves as a wave, it must have something to wave in - like the Universal Aether.

Or like an electron field.

[Klaynos]

!

Moderator Note

Gravitational aether post split off. Please do not respond to others threads with your own ideas.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/71555-gravitational-aether/

[gravitational-aether]

!

Moderator Note

Gravitational aether post split off. Please do not respond to others threads with your own ideas.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/71555-gravitational-aether/

 

The OP said, "I'm not saying there is an aether, I just want to brainstorm and talk about it."

 

Discussing what waves in a double slit experiment is the aether is brainstorming about the aether.

[Klaynos]

 

The OP said, "I'm not saying there is an aether, I just want to brainstorm and talk about it."

 

Discussing what waves in a double slit experiment is the aether is brainstorming about the aether.

!

Moderator Note

Please don't respond to moderator actions in a thread, either use the report post feature or send a pm to a staff member.

 

We do not allow non mainstream replies to others thread, for ease of discussions these must be kept to their own threads.

 

Do not derail this thread further by replying to this modnote.

[gravitational-aether]

"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed [..] The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. [..] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with 'stuff' that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo." - Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University

"According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense." - Albert Einstein

The relativistic ether referred to by Laughlin is the ether which propagates light referred to by Einstein.

[too-open-minded]

[too-open-minded]

seriously.... I just wanna know why light propagates in a wave. If its not a disturbance from an aether, then why is it?

[Essay]

seriously.... I just wanna know why light propagates in a wave. If its not a disturbance from an aether, then why is it?

 

Our brains naturally think of "space" as emptiness, and we think of an "aether" as somethingness. But that is a trick of our perceptions, conceptions, and preconceptions; or simply a trick of semantics.

Break your preconceptions and think not of "space," but of spacetime. And think of spacetime as something that expands to fill some "true" emptiness (of which we have no knowledge). Then, spacetime itself can be defined as, or "becomes," the aether.

Alternatively, it seems to me that the Higgs Field fulfills a lot of the qualities of an aether.

===

But whichever (if those aren't possibly two ways of saying the same thing), I think semantic concepts such as space and time make it hard to unify theories. we need to understand space (actually spacetime) differently, as something with complexity, nuance, and structure.

From that perspective, light could be just our perception of spacetime propagating itself into some emptiness (or perhaps even overlapping some other, pre-existing, spacetime). The speed of light may be the speed at which spacetime can propagate, or it may be the speed at which different spacetimes can adjust to each other changing... or words along those lines; like a "crack," or the "leading edge" of a fault/fissure, in spacetime.

We see waves because spacetime is perceived as 4-D, but we perceive mass as point-like or surface-like objects. ...hmmmm, maybe I'm equating spacetime with energy here; oh right, it is equating mass with propagation (since I linked propagation of light with propagation of spacetime). Might that fit with the Higgs concept? ...Anyway....

===

Or alternatively, there is no spacetime; and everything is touching everything else. Spacetime is just an illusion (our perception), which represents the changing relationships within an eleven dimensional solid (that I like to think of as the "FSM").

....Just brainstormin' here.

===

All hail the 11-D Flying Spaghetti Monster!

~

p.s. re: "...waves because spacetime is perceived as 4-D, but we perceive mass as point-like or...." I was trying to unify the perception of wave energy (propagating), and that energy when it is "collapsed" into a point [as when it is absorbed by some mass (or other "concentrated" spacetime)]... and then it acts like a particle. Right?

Edited December 17, 2012 by Essay

[swansont]

seriously.... I just wanna know why light propagates in a wave. If its not a disturbance from an aether, then why is it?

 

Because that's the only way it can propagate. A changing E field induces a B field, and a changing B field induces an E field. The only solution that propagates is an oscillatory EM field which satisfies the wave equation.

[too-open-minded]

Can you clarify or get a little more in depth with what you mean with the A, B, and E fields thing?

 

Oscillatory EM field to satisfy the equation? I'm sure it must be aggravating, me asking these questions but not even knowing how to work an equation for it let alone what it looks like. Sorry :/

[swansont]

Maxwell's equations tell us that (ignoring static fields) the electric field is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic field, and the magnetic field field is proportional to the rate of change of the electric field. There's one solution that continually perpetuates the other — when they are sinusoidal. In that solution the energy of the fields moves, and that's a wave.

[too-open-minded]

Don't really understand that but your pointing me in the right direction of what to look for so I can understand it, thankyou swan.

[StringJunky]

Doesn't matter which one you start with but the electric field creates a magnetic field which creates an electric field and so on. One field oscillates perpendicular (at right-angles) to the other and the direction of the wave is perpendicular to the oscillations.

 

 

http://www.astronomynotes.com/light/s2.htm

Edited December 18, 2012 by StringJunky