Speaker 1: The paradox of science. In the days of the ancients,
when the philosophers found themselves unable to account for any
particular class of phenomena, they bundled it together and referred
it to a suppositous something that they called the ether.
Finding this an easy way to get rid of vexatious questions,
they fell into the custom, and the habit grew upon them.
Soon there were a dozen or more different kind of
ethers in vogue, each explaining something else. The something else,
by the way, being things that science now feels that
it understands pretty well. These ethers grew to be, like
the various vapors of the ancients, a dignified term for
we don't know a respectable road for retreat. Under the
semblance of an advance. These ethers became a scientific scandal
and caused a lax mode of thinking among students of
those times, and so they were finally abolished and relegated
to the scrap pile of science, where they lay for
many centuries until a comparatively recent period, when at least
one of them was hauled forth, dusted, freshened up a little,
and placed upon its old pedestal. This revamped ether referred
to was the ether of Aristotle. Aristotle, as we know,
was a famous Greek philosopher who lived about three hundred
and fifty b c. About two thousand, two hundred and
fifty years ago. He was a good man and a
celebrated philosopher, but was somewhat deficient in scientific knowledge. Although
he knew many things and uttered many wise thoughts. He
was under the impression that the breath of man entered
the heart instead of the lungs, that the back part
of the skull was empty, and so on. He was
without the advantages of a modern training, which was not
his fault, however, well. Aristotle conceived the idea of a
universal ether, which he thought pervaded all space, and with
which he accounted for the passage of light from the
sun and stars, the movements of the planets, and various
other physical phenomena. It is not known whether Aristotle really
believed in this ether, or whether he merely used it
as a speculative hypothesis, following the ether habit of his contemporaries.
At any rate, his theory served its purpose, lived, flourished, declined,
and died at least seemed to be dead but its
corpse was resurrected in modern times and used to account
for diverse things. This does not mean that modern thinkers
really believe in the universal ether. They merely assume it
as a working hypothesis until something better is offered. Its
principal modern use is to account for the transmission of
light from the Sun and stars to the Earth. It
was held that a thing could not act where it
was not, and so it became necessary to account for
the transmission, either by the theory that small particles of
substance were thrown off from the Sun and traveled to
the Earth, or else that there was some medium of
communication by means of vibrations, et cetera. Newton held to
the first theory, but his hypothesis went down before the
ether advocates who advanced the wave theory, although it seems
that like Banquot's ghost, Newton's theory will not stay down
and is now taking on a new lease of life
owing to the discovery of the corpuscle and radiant matter.
The wave theory philosophers asserted that the light and heat
of the Sun were thrown off in the shape of
force or energy, and transformed into waves in and of
a hypothetical ether Aristotle's own, which waves were carried to
the Earth, where, meeting substance, they were again transformed into
heat and light. It was known that light and heat
traveled at the rate of one hundred eighty four thousand
miles percent second, and therefore the waves of the ether
were considered to have that speed. The wave theory seemed
to fit the facts of the case better than the
Newtonian theory of corpuscles, although the latter has always been
considered as better explaining certain phenomena than the new theory,
and so the ether wave became generally accepted and remains
so today, although recent discoveries are causing a disturbance in
the scientific camp regarding the question. Later it was discovered
that the electricity traveled at the same rate as light
and heat, and the wave of the ether theory was
thus thought to have additional verification, and electricity came under
the law and remained there until the electron discovery, which
is causing much disturbance among those interested in the study
of electricity. Briefly stated, the theory of the universal ether
is this that pervading all space in the universe, not
only between planets, stars, and suns, but also so filling
in the cracks between molecules and atoms as well. There
is a subtle substance in and through which the waves
of light, heat, electricity, and magnetism travel at the rate
of one hundred and eighty four thousand miles per second.
This substance is said to be matter that is not matter.
In fact, science does not venture to say just what
it is, although it freely states just what some of
its properties must be, and alas these properties are most
contradictory and opposite to each other, as we shall see
as we proceed, the universal ether is purely hypothetical. It
has been called a necessity of science, something assumed for
the purpose of explaining or accounting for certain phenomena. It
is undemonstrated and unproved. In fact, may truthfully be said
to be undemonstratable and unprovable. Some have gone so far
as to say that its claimed properties and qualities render
it unthinkable as well. And yet science finds itself compelled
to assume that the ether or something like it exists,
or else cease speculating about it. It belongs to the
realm of pure theory and yet many writers treat it
as if it were a positively demonstrated and proven fact.
Let us examine into the nature of science's problem and
her attempted solution and the trouble arising therefrom Light travels
at the rate of one hundred and eighty four thousand
miles a second. Remember that light and heat are that
which we call by those names only when considered in
connection with substance. According to the theory, light in the
Sun's atmosphere is transformed into a light wave of the
ether on its travels to the Earth, and only when
the wave comes in contact with the substance on the
Earth's body or atmosphere does it become again transformed into
light as we know it. In its travels through space,
it meets with no substance and has nothing to turn
into light. Consequently, space between worlds is in a state
of absolute darkness. The same is true of heat, and
inner world space is absolutely cold, although passing through it
are countless heat waves of great intensity, which later on
will be transformed into heat when they reach the substance
the Earth. The same is true of electricity and magnetism.
Although the ether, as we have seen as a purely
theoretical substance, yet science has found it reasonable to conclude
that it must be possessed of certain attributes in order
to account for certain known facts. Thus it is said
to be frictionless, else the world's suns and planets could
not pass freely through it, nor could the light and
heat waves travel at such a tremendous rate. It also
is thought to have something like in inertia, because motion,
once started in it persists until stopped, because it is
at a state of rest until motion is imparted to it,
and because it takes a fraction of time to impart
motion to it. It is thought to be different from
substance in any of its known forms for many reasons,
among such being the fact that no known form of
substance could carry vibrations through space at the rate of
one hundred and eighty four thousand miles a second, and
light and heat waves travel at that rate and have
forms and shapes and links of their own. Light, for instance,
vibrates on two planes, and a light wave is something
like a Greek cross, thus having a horizontal and a
vertical line or plane of vibration, and the ether cannot
be a fluid of any degree, because a fluid cannot
transmit cross vibrations at all, and it cannot be a solid,
because a solid could not stand vibrations at such a
terrific speed and still remain a solid, and yet to
transmit the two Plaine light waves, the ether must have
a certain degree of rigidity, else the waves could not travel.
Lord Kelvin estimated this degree of rigidity as about nineteen
billion of the rigidity of the hardest steel. So you see,
science is compelled to assume that the ether is a continuous,
frictionless medium, possessing both inertia and rigidity. Some scientists have
thought it to be a kind of elastic jelly of
the ether. Professor Oliver Lodge has said, we have to
try and realize the idea of a perfectly continuous, subtle,
incompressible substance pervading all space and penetrating between the molecules
of ordinary matter which are embedded in it and connected
to one another by its means, And we must regard
it as the one universal medium by which all actions
between bodies are carried on. This, then, is its function
to act as the transmitter of motion and energy, to
give you an idea of the wonderful thing that science
is compelled to think of the ether as being by
reason of the qualities it is compelled to ascribe to it,
although it confesses itself unable to imagine the nature of
the thing which it has created in bits by the
adding and bestowing of qualities which were made necessary by
the logical requirements of the case. Let us take a
hurried view of the thing as the several departments of
science say it must be thought of. To meet the
requirements of the case. Science says that the universal Ether
must be substance, infinitely more rare and evanescent than the
finest gas or vapor known to science, even in its
rarest condition. It must convey heat in the manner of
an infinitely solid body, and yet it must not be
a solid. It must be trans parent and invisible. It
must be frictionless and yet incompressible. It cannot be a fluid.
It cannot have attraction for substance such as all substance has,
nor can it have weight, that is, it is not
subject to gravitation. It is beyond the reach of any
known scientific instrument, even of the greatest power, and it
refuses to register itself in any way, either to senses
or instruments. It cannot be known of itself, but may
only be recognized as existent by the things for which
it acts as a medium or transmitting agent. It must
convey energy and motion, yet it must not take up
any part of either from the matter in its midst
It must not absorb any of the heat, light, or electricity.
It must fill up the spaces between the worlds, as
well as the most minute space between the molecules, atoms,
and corpuscles, or any other minute particle of substance, either
known by name to science now, or which may be
discovered or imagined later as a necessity of some conception
regarding the nature of substance. In short, the universal ether,
in order to do the things attributed to it, must
be more solid than solids, more vapor like and gas
like than vapor or gas, more fluid than fluids, infinitely
less rigid than steel, and yet infinitely stronger than the
strongest steel. It must be a substance having the qualities
of a vacuum. It must be continuous and not composed
of particles, atoms, or molecules. It must be in everything
in some respects, and yet a nothing in others. It
must not be substance, and yet it must carry substance
within its ocean of dimensions, and besides, interpenetrate the most
minute space between the particles of substance. It must not
be inner or force. And yet science has been considering
energy and force as but interruptions of rest or agitations
within and of itself. So you see that this mysterious,
wonderful universal ether, in order to be at all, must
be a something possessing certain qualities or properties of substance,
many of the properties of qualities being exactly contradictory and
opposed to each other. And yet it cannot be substance
as we know it. It is a paradoxical thing. It
could only belong to another, and an entirely different order
of existence from that of substance as we know it.
It must possess characteristics and properties of an order as
yet unknown to us, by name for which the material
world contains no analogy, for which substance has no analogs.
It must be a far more complex thing than is
even the most complex thing we call matter, or that
which we call force or energy. And yet it has
been claimed that it would explain both, yes, contain within
itself the possibility of both. And yet in face of
what has just been said, the writer must confess humbly
and with a full realization of the enormity of the offense,
that he supposes advancing a theory a little further on
in this book that will attempt to identify this something,
this universal ether, with a something else that we know,
although not through the senses or by means of instruments.
Bear with him kindly, he begs of you, while he
proceeds gradually along the path that leads to the theory.
Scientists have compared substance moving through the ether as a
coarse sieve moving through water, the latter making room for
the passage of the sieve and then closing up behind it.
If this be amended by the idea that the moving sieve,
while allowing the water to pass through it freely, still
carries along with it a thin film of water which
clings to the wires of the sieve by adhesion. If
there be admitted this clinging film, as well as the
body of the water through which the sieve moves, then
the illustration answers quite well as a crude illustration of
substance and the ether. This fact is important in view
of the theory that will be advanced further on in
this book. Professor Lodge, in his interesting work Modern Views
of Electricity, mentions a number of experiments tending to prove
the above mentioned fact, which is not so generally known
as other facts relating to the ether. Until the discovery
of radiant matter, bringing with it the new theories of
the corpuscle or electron, et cetera brushed aside into the
dust heat. Many generally accepted scientific theories regarding the nature
of substance. The favored and most popular theory was what
was known as the vortex ring the theory of the atom.
This theory held that the atoms of substance were but
vortex rings of the ether, having had motion communicated to
them in some way, and which afterwards acquired other motions,
and which finally become apparent to our senses as substance.
In other words, the atom was supposed to be a
vortex ring of ether acted upon by force in some
unknown way, the character, nature, and properties of the atom
being determined by the shape and size of the vortex ring.
The rate of motion, et cetera, et cetera. The new
discoveries of science, however, have set aside, at least temporarily,
this vortex ring theory, and at present science seems to
find its latest thing in substance in the theory that substance,
at the last seems to be the corpuscle or electron.
In other words, after many years of fancied security and
a settled theory ring regarding the nature of substance, science
once more finds itself compelled to take up the search
for the origin of things. But the theory of the
ether remains and is likely to, Although the names applied
to it will change by some, it is still believed
that in the ether, a little further removed rest the
origin of substance, and that the corpuscle may be the
vortex ring product instead of the atom. It will be
noticed that science has made no serious attempt to connect
the phenomenon of gravitation or attraction with the ether. Gravitation
stands alone, an outsider among the forces, responding to none
of their laws, needing no time in which to travel,
needing no medium like the ether in which to transmit waves,
fearing no obstacle or interfering body, but passing right through
the same different, different, different. And we shall see why
this difference when we reach the point where our theory
brings us to the point where we must substitute something
else for that great paradoxical general solvent of modern science,
the ether of Aristotle. We shall reach the point after
a brief consideration of motion, force, and energy