Talk:Aether (classical element)

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Contents

[edit] Michelson-Morley experiment wrong?

The final paragraph of the page appears to state that the Michelson-Morley experiment is erroneous. I've never heard of such a thing, and there are no sources provided. Additionally, it was my understanding that the pair attempted to prove the existence of the aether, not disprove it. --Gigacannon 16:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

How do we know that the Greek concept of aether is actually derived from the Hindu akasha? It's possible that they are both derived from Proto-Indo-European culture. --coldacid 21:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Void

Who calls Aether the void? Aristotle uses aether and he is definitely antivoid. Maestlin 05:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please stay on topic

This article covers the "classical element". The "Luminiferous aether" is covered in Luminiferous aether (surprise!), other aether theories, and an overview is given in Aether theories. --Pjacobi 15:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This article covers the "classical element". The classical thought lead to the aether theories!!!! 134.193.168.249 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

lead to vs is. We have different articles. There is no need to repeat stuff here. --Pjacobi

Yes. There is. It's a legacy thing. 134.193.168.249

I'm not convinced, but in its current form it doesn't hurt as much. --Pjacobi 15:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why was the Oliver Nicholson quote removed?

There used to be a small quote from Oliver Nicholson in the Fifth Element section. Why was it removed? It was from "Tesla's self-sustaining electrical generator", The historical ether. Proceedings of the Tesla Centenial Symposium, 1984.

It read as follows: Oliver Nicholson points out that, in contrast to the better known luminiferous aether of the 19th century, the older concept of the classical aether had three properties. Among these characteristics, the classical aether had a non-material property, was "less than the vehicle of visible light", and was responsible for "generating metals" along with fostering the development of all bodies.

The original section can still be seen on other sites linked to Wikipedia, such as answers.com

[edit] Notice

I have removed text below from the first paragraph because it appeared extraneous. If anyone wants to either incoprorate it into the wording, or discuss it, here it is.

"Does the ether exist? Einstein's theory of special relativity suggests that the question is irrelevant. Certainly no one thinks today that a solid medium pervades space. On the other hand, it is widely believed that there is no real vacuum. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected in 1964 the cosmic background radiation, a leftover of the big bang. This radiation is pervasive and basically the same in all directions. It is possible to measure Earth's movement against this background radiation."

[edit] Similar Culture Concepts.

This was on the Quintessence Disambig page, where I don't feel it's quite appropriate. Beats me if it should be added to this article or just left out to dry, since some of these seem a stretch (ichor is the same as aether?!) SnowFire 01:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The concept of a life-energy inherent in all living beings seems to be a fairly universal archetype, and appears in numerous ancient religions and systems of metaphysics (in addition to having been borrowed by George Lucas's science-fiction films).

Analogies to numina in other societies include:

Also related are the philosophical concepts of:

[edit] Two grammatical quibbles

I'm no philosopher, so maybe this has some special meaning I'm not aware of, but the very first sentence

Aether ... is a concept used in ancient and medieval science as a substance.

seems odd to me. It's a concept used as a substance? Perhaps that should be rephrased.

Later in the first paragraph is

Its force is imagined to be like a lightning.

If this isn't an attributable quote, it's rather an odd thing to say, also. As a native English speaker, "a lightning" just doesn't scan well.


--Rob Cranfill 19:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)