Ether theory

A scientist s credo might be One measurement is no measurement. Thus, take a few measurements and divine the truth This is an invitation for discussions, worse yet, even disputes among scientists. Science thrives on hypotheses that are either disproven or left to stand in the natural sciences that essentially means experiments are re-mn. Any insufficiency of a model results in a refinement of the existing theory it is rare that a theory completely fails (the nineteenth-century luminiferous ether theory of electromagnetic waves was one such, and cold fusion was a more shortlived case). 

These speculations about the ionic, polar, or electronic nature of chemical bonding, which arose largely from solution theory, resulted mostly in static models of the chemical bond or atom structure. In contrast is another tradition, which is more closely identified with ether theory and electrodynamics. This tradition, too, may be associated with Helmholtz, especially by way of his contributions to nineteenth-century theories of a "vortex atom" that would explain chemical affinities as well as the origin of electromagnetism, radiation, and spectral lines. 

Soul that is permanent the body or outward form, i.e., the mode of manifestation of the Soul, is transitory, and one form may be transmuted into another. The similarity, indeed it might be said, the identity, between this view and the modem etheric theory of matter is at once apparent. 

Refs. [i] Wollaston WH (1801) Philos TransR Soc Lonon 91 427 [ii] Wollaston WH (1801) Cambridge University Library, Private Notebook G, p 23 [iii] Wollaston WH (1804), Philos Trans R Soc London 94 419 [iv] ibid 95 316 [v] ibid 103 114 [vi] Heilbron JL (1981) The electrical field before Faraday. In Cantor GN, Hodge MJS (eds) Conceptions of ether studies in the history of ether theories 1740-1900. Cambridge University Press, New York [vii] Brewster D (1831) A treatise on optics. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, and John Taylor, London, p 342... 

Cantor, G. Hodge, M.J.S. (Eds.). (1981). Conceptions of Ether. Studies in the History of Ether Theories ij40-iyoo. Cambridge. 

There is no question that the three reports, the photoelectric effect, the special relativity and the Brownian motion published by Einstein in 1905 changed the traditional consciousness of researchers in the 20th century. The report on the photoelectric effect clarified an old problem in the wave theory of light by linking discussions on the nature of light and the quantum hypothesis originating in Planck s study of specific heat. The report on special relativity refuted the ether theory and created an entirely new field. The report on Brownian motion, aimed at the very existence of atoms and molecules, created the theory... 

FIGURE 306. The all-too-human attempt by Mendeleev to cram his periodic law into an explanation of the defunct ether theory is similar to the attempts by nineteenth-cenmry paleontologists to cram the bones of dinosaurs into the shapes of bears and other known land animals. 

Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800-1884) proposed the ether theory, the theory of substitution with the radicals theory , the measurement of vapor densities, the determination of nitrogen in organic compounds, and the isolation of anthracene from tar, chloral, iodoform, bromoform and picric acid. 

The first five of the following formulas appeared in Williamson s first ether theory paper of August 1850. 

Laudan asks whether, as a matter of historical fact, successful past theories always possess referring terms in the sense generally taken by realists. He provides numerous examples to show that this has generally not been the case. For example, Laudan cites several ether theories and other influential theories from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, like phlogiston and caloric, which were successful but possessed non-referring central terms from a modern perspective. Laudan does not however venture to make such an argument for any twentieth century theories or even less for any currently accepted theories in science. 

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