Thanks. That answered the first half of my question.
>
>As pointed out in the other reply, prior to this one, Michelson did find a
>difference in light speed, and subsequently I have read of other accounts of
>this as well.
>
I have read of these as well, such as Alais's pendulums which change during
an eclipse. I believe we are waiting for NASA to release the results of
some more accurate tests performed during the most recent eclipse, intended
to verify his results.
>And as Jerry pointed out in a recent post, a laser ring gyro, which is
>commonly used for navigation, has differing speeds of the light beams in
>various relative directions, and can be used to indicate the direction change
>of the vehicle in which it resides. (conventional empty space has a hard time
>explaining this)
I am pretty sure that the Sagnac effect, which is responsible for the
phenomena you describe, is well understood and accounted for by special
relativity. For example, I found http://mathpages.com/rr/s2-07/2-07.htm
which agrees with my understanding.
>
>There is a phenomenon called Fresnel Drag, in which the speed of light
>passing through a liquid is altered if the liquid is moving. If the light
>direction is the same or opposite to the fluid flow, the fluid speed is added
>to or subtracted from the light speed. (again empty space/conventional
>theory cannot account for this)
Although I've never heard of Fresnel drag until you brought it up, I don't
see why the phenomena as you describe it is at odds with special
relativity. The speed of light through a liquid is less than c because the
photon is absorbed and then reemitted by the molecules that it strikes,
which takes some time. If the liquid was moving in the direction of the
photon, then the photon would be reemitted in a place further along its
path, which would increase the apparent speed of the photon.
>
>The list of unexplained anomalies goes on, if you dig a little.
I welcome any additional examples you can come up with, but I don't see how
either of the two phenomena you mentioned above are at odds with relativity.
>
>Even that pillar of modern EM theory, Maxwell, held that there is an aether,
>and he used this assumption when formulating his famous equations. (I
>understand)
>
>And last, Einstein himself DID NOT DISMISS a substrate to the universe, or
>aether and he refers to this in at least one address:
Thank you for the excellent article and link.
>So you see, there may indeed have been a great blunder in modern physics
>abandoning an "aether" or "substance" to space/vacuum/everywhere in our
>universe.
I don't think that modern physics has abandoned the idea of a substance to
spacetime at all, but that it just isn't needed to account for any observed
phenomena...yet. If aetherists want to be taken more seriously by the sc
>
>But it does not have the simple properties that were originally ascribed to
>it.
It seems to me that modern aetherists are expounding an aether that is
completely unrelated to the aether that MM searched for. (If this is wrong,
feel free to correct me.) This also suggests that if they stopped calling
it an aether, and disconnected their ideas from the failed theory, that
they would be taken more seriously by mainstream scientists.
>
>It is not likely particulate, and seems to act as a fluid, with similar
>characteristics to fluid dynamics - indeed much of the conventionally
>accepted EM theory and equations, are remarkably similar to those for fluid
>dynamics. (if there is no medium, than what is the "flow direction" that is
>commonly given to a magnetic field, or magnetic lines of flux; indeed is not
>the word flux used to describe a flow of some kind?)
Definitely! I agree completely here: there are remarkable similarities
between electromagnetism and fluid mechanics.
-Peter
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