Ether Theory May Just Supplant Dark Matter Theory

This seems to be a subject that never goes away. There is no doubt that the ancients firmly believed in the ether, and up until 1887 when the Michelson Morley experiment "failed" the academicians of the time believed in it.

However, if you read the article, you will find out that even Glen Starkman, the "new" thory's proposer, has doubts about it being true. He states at the end of the article, "We're offering an alternative to the dark matter theory—we're not saying it's wrong. If I had to bet today on which of these theories was correct, I might bet on dark matter."

I suppose we will have to wait and see.

Dark Matter's Rival: Ether Theory
Challenges "Invisible Mass"


Elizabeth Svoboda
for National Geographic News
September 8, 2006
news.nationalgeographic.com...


Late last month scientists working at NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory announced that they had found proof of dark matter, the theoretical substance believed to make up more than a quarter of the universe.

But Glenn Starkman, a cosmologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, is hitting back with a blast from the past.

He argues that dark matter might not exist and that the long-discredited substance known as ether is actually what influences gravity in the cosmos.

Dark matter is the prevailing scientific explanation for a puzzling phenomenon: Galaxies behave as if they contain much more mass than is visible to astronomers.

According to theory, dark matter is the invisible mass that accounts for this behavior, and the undetectable substance makes up five times more of the universe than the matter we can see.

Starkman's controversial counterproposal is that the presence of ether in the universe better explains the galaxies' behavior.

His theories were recently reported in the August 26 issue of New Scientist magazine.

"Galaxies spin faster than they should, given the amount of matter we see in them. The possibility we've gone with for a long time is that there's some unaccounted-for mass generating that extra gravity," Starkman said.

"But the other possibility is that the amount of mass we see generates more gravity than we thought. That's where ether comes in."

[edit on 10-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]


Mod Edit: Fixed long link.

[edit on 17-9-2006 by TheBandit795]

One big problem of the ether theory will always stand that cannot be reconciled with what we know about Relativity. No matter how fast you are traveling, light will always be the same speed. In Ether theory, if you were travelling towards a NE Vector at 25 miles/hour, and shot a beam of light SW, the speed of light would be reduced by the speed you were travelling NE. This has not been observered, ever, no matter how many times we test it.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here is a thread I posted about an experiment where scientists are trying to "create" dark matter particles. Here is the experiment they are conducting..

In the DESY experiment, the laser beam would be sent through a vacuum in the presence of a magnetic field and then into a wall. The idea is that a fraction of the laser photons will transform into the new particles, which then pass through the wall because they interact so weakly with other matter. Another magnetic field located on the other side of the wall will then transform some of these new particles back into photons – apparently regenerating photons out of nothing (arXiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0606058). Ringwald and colleagues plan to run an initial experiment towards the end of 2006, and then, if they do discover axions, carry out a second experiment to investigate the detailed properties of the particle in autumn 2007.

Originally posted by sardion2000
One big problem of the ether theory will always stand that cannot be reconciled with what we know about Relativity. No matter how fast you are traveling, light will always be the same speed. In Ether theory, if you were travelling towards a NE Vector at 25 miles/hour, and shot a beam of light SW, the speed of light would be reduced by the speed you were travelling NE. This has not been observered, ever, no matter how many times we test it.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here is a thread I posted about an experiment where scientists are trying to "create" dark matter particles. Here is the experiment they are conducting..

Well, as I presented in the original post, even Starkman,the ideas advocate, has doubts about there being an ether. I think part of the problem that "high energy" physicists are encountering is that recent discoveries are not correlating with some of "relativity's" principles. Therefore, the physicists are having to reconsider some things.

[edit on 11-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

This is happening all the time, no biggie. Everyone, even the lay-people, know that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't mix. They work for lots of different predictions so we know that a good portion of those theories are correct. I find the current climate to be exciting actually. It feels like 1904 all over again

Originally posted by sardion2000
This is happening all the time, no biggie. Everyone, even the lay-people, know that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't mix. They work for lots of different predictions so we know that a good portion of those theories are correct. I find the current climate to be exciting actually. It feels like 1904 all over again

Yeah,it is all pretty exciting. Einstein was certainly no big fan of quantum mechanics. I don't think that it was particularly because he disagreed with it, I actually think he agreed with it, but moreso because he could not unify it with his pet theory of relativity. That's just my opinion.

While I am certainly not taking anything from the intellectual prowess of Einstein, he's probably the greatest mind to ever live, even he had doubts about his theory of relativity. If he did, shouldn't the rest of us also be a bit skeptical of his theory?

I don't think there is any reason to be skeptical of Relativity, it just works for so many things and applications, just like Newton who invariably got quite a bit wrong(like the instantanoius transfer of gravity rather then the speed of light in Relativity(we are testing that right now btw with space probes)).

What we do need to be skeptical about is any attempt to unify the two disparate theories.

Einstein wasn't alone in being stumped by the problem of Quantum Gravity and we have been searching for almost a Century for the key nugget of an idea that will provide us the ultimate theory of life, the universe, and everything... there are many proposals, but the top three seem to boil down to this.

INTRODUCTION TO LOOP QUANTUM GRAVITY, everything you ever wanted to know...

String Theory(QuickTime HI-RESOLUTION)
String Theory(RealAudio/QuickTime LOW-RESOLUTION)

Top-Down Approach

Random Theories/Weird Stuff
The "Third Road"

Originally posted by sardion2000
I don't think there is any reason to be skeptical of Relativity, it just works for so many things and applications, just like Newton who invariably got quite a bit wrong(like the instantanoius transfer of gravity rather then the speed of light in Relativity(we are testing that right now btw with space probes)).

What we do need to be skeptical about is any attempt to unify the two disparate theories.

Einstein wasn't alone in being stumped by the problem of Quantum Gravity and we have been searching for almost a Century for the key nugget of an idea that will provide us the ultimate theory of life, the universe, and everything... there are many proposals, but the top three seem to boil down to this.

INTRODUCTION TO LOOP QUANTUM GRAVITY, everything you ever wanted to know...

String Theory(QuickTime HI-RESOLUTION)
String Theory(RealAudio/QuickTime LOW-RESOLUTION)

Top-Down Approach

Random Theories/Weird Stuff
The "Third Road"

Well, string theory is pretty strange in and of itself. The deeper we explore into matter, the stranger things seem to become. I suggest everyone read, for those who have not, The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. While much of the information is "old beans", it's still rather relevant.

Physics, particularly theoretical physics, is a subject I have dabbled in for a few years now. I must say that in my honest opinion there will never be a unifying theory for everything. The closest thing we have to that is what is presented by religion and most of your academians will never accept that theory.

Another place to look is perhaps the digital theory of everything. It is the ideal that we are all just living in a huge computer that is designed by some outside source trying to solve a very complex mathematical equation. What happens when the equation is solved?



[edit on 11-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

All we need to do is stumble upon a set of mathematical equations that explains everything that we see with no infinities or paradoxes cropping up when testing the theory. We will get it eventually and when we do, the next phase begins and that is to apply that theory to everything we come across in the universe. If we find discrepancies then we modify the theory until the point where it becomes clear that a new one is needed or it becomes for all intents and purposes "perfected." Who knows whether this unified theory will be valid for what goes on outside of the universe, thats a whole nuther realm alltogether, and when people talk about a grand unified field theory, they're talking about the one that applies to this universe and this universe only. It could give hints as to the larger picture, but without actually being able to go there, it's all speculation.

I think that this quote might have some relevance to the discussion

Starkman's conception of ether, however, is very different from the outmoded 19th-century one—he thinks that ether affects the pull of gravity, not the movement of light waves.

"With traditional gravitational models, you have a rubber sheet that curves wherever there's a large mass on it," he said.

In Starkman's theory of how ether works, "when ether is around, the rubber sheet gets softer. So when you put a large mass on the sheet, the effect of the mass goes out further."

news.nationalgeographic.com

[edit on 2006/9/11 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by sardion2000
All we need to do is stumble upon a set of mathematical equations that explains everything that we see with no infinities or paradoxes cropping up when testing the theory. We will get it eventually and when we do, the next phase begins and that is to apply that theory to everything we come across in the universe. If we find discrepancies then we modify the theory until the point where it becomes clear that a new one is needed or it becomes for all intents and purposes "perfected." Who knows whether this unified theory will be valid for what goes on outside of the universe, thats a whole nuther realm alltogether, and when people talk about a grand unified field theory, they're talking about the one that applies to this universe and this universe only. It could give hints as to the larger picture, but without actually being able to go there, it's all speculation.

So, I am assuming you too believe in the "many unverse" theory of Heisenberg...I think that is why our universe acts as if it is attached to something outside of itself. I believe it may very well have "erupted" from a pre-existing universe....

Very true, Grady...Starkman's conception is not along the same lines as Michelson's and Morley's; I don't suppose.

[edit on 11-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Hi guys,

Reports about this idea to the effect that it somehow contradicts special relativity or general relativity are I think maybe a bit misleading. It is a phenomenological model and is carefully designed not to (knowingly!) clash with anything that supports either of those theories. Indeed, they don't specify any coupling between this vector field and normal matter so you'll only know it's there by how it's affecting spacetime.

It does though violate a symmetry of special relativity, and they're quite happy doing this because there's reason to believe that breaking of this particular symmetry might well come along with quantum gravity.
So, if one could write down a simple implementation of that (e.g. this theory) which
turns out doing better than expected, then there may well be something to it.

The argument for exotic dark matter (WIMPS) is strongly supported by galaxy rotation curves and the ability (unlike normal matter) to allow for large scale structure to form.

This aether tries to explain the former by reproducing 'Modified Newtonian Dynamics', the rival to dark matter on galactic scales, in its equations. It's not at all obvious that it could play the second role HOWEVER a recent paper ' Can Cosmic Structure form without Dark Matter?'
(astro-ph/0608602) seems to quite strongly suggest that this vector field does the job with that too! Who knows!

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
So, I am assuming you too believe in the "many unverse" theory of Heisenberg...I think that is why our universe acts as if it is attached to something outside of itself. I believe it may very well have "erupted" from a pre-existing universe....

I believe our Universe has always existed, it's just that for the vast majority of time, our Universe was a flat 2 dimension membrane floating through a vast void(the M-Theory interpretation). At some point I believe this membrane collided with another member to create our universe(and possibily another one as well).

So in a literal sense I do believe in many universes, just not in the Heisenberg sense(I have not seen any conclusive proof, the most convincing explanation was Hawkings Top-Down model, which I posted above I believe).

In the Top-Down model, Hawking proposes that all possible realities exist at the same spacetime, reality that we experience emerges from a cosmic averaging over the various realities. (All realities except ours are virtual(within this Brane that is))

[edit on 17-9-2006 by sardion2000]

[edit on 17-9-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
In the Top-Down model, Hawking proposes that all possible realities exist at the same spacetime, reality that we experience emerges from a cosmic averaging over the various realities. (All realities except ours are virtual(within this Brane that is))

I would say that sums up the many universe theory pretty well. It is one of those thing that we can't be for certain about because our consciousness only allows us to be aware of one reality, and a very miniscule amount of that, at one time.

I don't think you totally understand what Hawking said. We would not be able to percieve these virtual realities because they don't exist in the physical sense of the term. They are only possibilities and it's the mixing and mashing of all the possiblities that creates the reality we percieve. I personally am quite skeptical as I'm not too sure how one would test the model(I'll have to re-read the article too so I'll come back later an expand on what I'm saying)

Also, this model also backs up Physists assumption that if we were able to wind back the unverse to just after the point of its birth, the Universes Evolution would have gone a completely different route. Out of Chaos comes Order, but as a direct result of the Chaos, no two periods of Order can be alike even though the beggining ingredients were exactly the same.

[edit on 17-9-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
I don't think you totally understand what Hawking said. We would not be able to percieve these virtual realities because they don't exist in the physical sense of the term. They are only possibilities and it's the mixing and mashing of all the possiblities that creates the reality we percieve. I personally am quite skeptical as I'm not too sure how one would test the model(I'll have to re-read the article too so I'll come back later an expand on what I'm saying)


[edit on 17-9-2006 by sardion2000]

Well, if he doesn't think they are real,I can't say that I agree with him.Although Hawkin is a "genius" I suppose,I'm gonna disagree with him on this one.

[edit on 17-9-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

I found Aether theory is about radiation and not mass, such that its a push
on both smaller and larger mass bodies such that the larger mass blocks
the aether push and the smaller body is pushed to the large mass.

Its the old story, why fix it if it works and Newton got us into space with satellites.

The String Theory Solution makes me think of Fourier series solutions but thats
all in the name some how and the idea that any equation can be solved by a
series solution.