aether

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“
For instance I think the Michaelson-Morley experiment which disproved the existence of the aether is a brilliant piece of thinking.

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Definitions (2)

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  1. a medium that was once supposed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves
  2. personification of the sky or upper air breathed by the Olympians; son of Erebus and night or of Chaos and darkness

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Examples (50)

  • There is no aether, and light travels through empty space unaided by any aether Anyway, Michelson and Morley came up with a way to measure the speed of light in the direction of Earth's motion and at right angles to Earth's motion. —  FSF - April2006
  • The aether was a mysterious medium, which had no mass, no energy, nothing—except that it was necessary in order for light to move anywhere at all. —  Strange Horizons Aug '01
  • Since the aether was the medium for all electromagnetic waves, it made sense to say that the speed of light was 300,000 km/s relative to the aether. —  Strange Horizons Aug '01
  • Light moving with the aether would be faster than light moving against the aether, and light moving across the aether would be somewhere in between. —  Strange Horizons Aug '01
  • But if there is no aether, then there is no preferred frame of reference for measuring the speed of light, either—the Michelson-Morley experiment, as it came to be known, proved that as surely as it disproved the existence of the aether. —  Strange Horizons Aug '01
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