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Luminiferous aether or ether [1] (luminiferous meaning 'light-bearing') was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. [2] It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave -based light to propagate through empty space (a vacuum ), something that waves should not be able to do.
In the 19th century, luminiferous aether (or ether), meaning light-bearing aether, was a theorized medium for the propagation of light. James Clerk Maxwell developed a model to explain electric and magnetic phenomena using the aether, a model that led to what are now called Maxwell's equations and the understanding that light is an ...
In the late 19th century, physicists postulated that aether permeated space, providing a medium through which light could travel in a vacuum, but evidence for the presence of such a medium was not found in the Michelson–Morley experiment, and this result has been interpreted to mean that no luminiferous aether exists. [2]
4th-century BC – Aristotle publishes Physics, in which the aether is briefly described as being an element lighter than air that surrounds celestial bodies. He describes the aether in relation to other elements – aether is lighter than air and is located above it, whereas air is lighter than water, and water is lighter than earth. In ...
Luminiferous aether or ether ("luminiferous", meaning "light-bearing"), was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space, something that waves should not be able to do. The assumption of a spatial plenum of luminiferous aether ...
The word derives from the Medieval Latin empyreus, an adaptation of the Ancient Greek empyros (ἔμπυρος), meaning "in or on the fire (pyr)". [ 1 ] In Christian religious cosmologies, the Empyrean was "the source of light" and where God and saved souls resided, [ 1 ] and in medieval Christianity, the Empyrean was the third heaven and ...
The experiment compared the speed of light in perpendicular directions in an attempt to detect the relative motion of matter, including their laboratory, through the luminiferous aether, or "aether wind" as it was sometimes called. The result was negative, in that Michelson and Morley found no significant difference between the speed of light ...
The existence of the hypothetical substance luminiferous aether proposed by Huygens in 1678 was cast into strong doubt in the late nineteenth century by the Michelson–Morley experiment. Newton's corpuscular theory implied that light would travel faster in a denser medium, while the wave theory of Huygens and others implied the opposite.