The Biggest Question Physicists Aren’t Asking 

Don't get the math confused with what it describes. The Schrödinger "Wave" equation isn't a wave equation, it's a heat or energy diffusion equation that gives the probability density of particle states. There is no evidence that Fields actually exist, they are just a mathematical framework for describing relationships (i.e., just a coordinate system where reality has no coordinates.) Math describes the relationships between observed phenomena because we constructed the equations to match those observations. We cannot model what we cannot observe. The math we use doesn't necessarily match what is actually there. Worse "Energy" is really an abstraction of observed phenomena. In the end, we may not have the capability to observe the real substance, assuming there is any substance, anymore than an interference pattern on a pond surface could observe the water on which it was made. That's not very satisfying but humans have limits.

The problem with quantizing gravity isn't with putting together a quantum theory of gravity, it's with putting together one that has predictive power for phenomena that we have not yet observed. Naive approaches to quantizing gravity end up with an infinite number of free parameters that have to be specified, so you can basically use them to come up with any possible theory of quantum gravity. Meanwhile, physicists are looking out for Lorentz violations, which, among other things, could indicate the presence of an ether. But the fact is that the phenomena available for us to observe with our present technology simply don't provide us with the data we need to decide between different alternatives, so it makes the most sense to just specify the math that describes what we see and leave it at that until we see something new. I'll also note that it's quite possible that the underlying "what's waving" isn't necessarily accessible to us, and might not even be constant across the lifetime of the universe. Assume, for instance, that the universe is a computer simulation. In that case "what's waving" is a bunch of numbers in a computer's memory. But assuming no bugs in the simulation, in the compiler, or in the operating system or hardware, the particulars of the simulation environment would be entirely unobservable to us. And let's assume that a new computer model comes out. The simulation state is saved to disk, the simulator is recompiled on the new computer, for a different instruction set, different OS, different system libraries, using a new compiler, and then the simulation state saved on the old computer is restated on the new one. Assuming no bugs, we won't notice a thing: the universe will continue evolving and we won't even notice that it ever paused. Even if the representation of the data and the way the calculations are performed changes drastically, the behavior we see will be identical.

Quantum fields are basically the ether these days. Physicists generally do consider them to be things, rather than properties. That's why the fields themselves can _have_ properties, like energy and momentum. (I'm all for exploring different venues though.)

Bill Gaede already has The Rope Hypothesis. IMO, THE best explanation for all phenomena like gravity, light, magnetism, etc.

Bravo! So well explained and thought provoking.

The electromagnetic field can play the part of a dynamic interactive aether. All that is needed is for photon ∆E=hf electron spherical 4πr² oscillations or vibrations to precedes everything forming greater degrees of freedom for statistical entropy and the irreversible processes of classical physics. Such as heat energy always spontaneously flowing from hot to cold and friction always changing motion into heat. We need to go back to r² and the three-dimensional physics of the Inverse Square Law is crucial. The spherical 4πr² geometry is key to this concept, grounded in Huygens' Principle from 1670, which states, "Every point on a wave front of light has the potential to create a new spherical 4πr² light wave." Each point can be considered a potential photon ∆E=hf electron interaction exchanging potential photon energy into the kinetic Eₖ=½mv² energy of matter in the form of electrons. We experienced this as a continuously emerging probabilistic future with the spherical 4πr² surface acting as a boundary condition or manifold for the uncertainty ∆x∆pᵪ≥h/4π encountered in daily life.

James this is an excellent, short, and illustrative presentation. I really like how condensed you made the material. I look forward to the next installment. Will you be at OCON next week?

Aren't you getting confused? Sound is a pressure wave in the medium (air). Light is a wave in the the medium (electromagnetic field). You're just giving a name "ether" to the EM field.

Excellent- well done!

You're pretty good at this... thanks for great post

There are flaws in this video. First, fields represent the spatial distribution and evolution of physical quantities ... and while fields can have properties such as strength, direction, or curvature, they are not properties in the same sense as intrinsic attributes of particles. Second, to propagate, fields don't require a material medium in the traditional sense - spacetime is not a medium but is instead a geometric concept of the arena within which things happen.

James Ellias: Science's Unique Savior.

Thank you for asking this question. MME needs much more scrutiny than it is currently given.

BTW, the Einstein's tensor formula for gravitation expands out to many, many terms. I have seen a partial solution that takes up an entire page of terms, many of which have effects that are so small as to have little effect under anything other than black holes. All these tiny terms might evade the singularity problem, and maybe there are still more undiscovered fields that also prevent singularities.

The table has no contraction at the lab rest frame. It will be contracted at the ether rest frame (if such exist) exactly the same as the wavelength of the corresponding table direction. But again the results showed that the speed of light is constant at all inertial frames, including the ether rest frame (if such exist). So if there's an ether rest frame it has no impact on the light speed, which is pretty weird for a medium of a wave.

Would there be any issue describing a volume of empty and flat space as a lattice of clocks that all tick at the same rate?

Quantum mechanics stands out as a domain where the both/and logic of the monadological framework finds profound relevance and application. The paradoxical behavior of quantum particles and systems has persistently challenged classical binary logic and representations rooted in strict separability and the mutual exclusivity of properties. Wave-Particle Duality One of the most famous quantum paradoxes is the wave-particle duality, where quantum entities like electrons and photons exhibit properties of both particles and waves depending on the experimental context. Classical logic would deem these to be contradictory and mutually exclusive properties - an entity cannot be both a localized particle and a delocalized wave simultaneously. However, quantum experiments have incontrovertibly demonstrated this seemingly impossible "wave-particle duality." The multivalent structure of the both/and logic allows us to formally represent and reason about these apparently contradictory wave and particle aspects. We can assign quantum entities like an electron a partial truth value between 0 and 1 for both the proposition "is a particle" and "is a wave" based on the specific experimental context. The coherence operator ○ in the logic allows quantifying the compatibility between the particle and wave properties. For instance, in a double-slit experiment setup, an electron could be assigned truth values of 0.7 for "is a wave" and 0.6 for "is a particle", with a coherence value ○(wave, particle) = 0.4 say. This reflects that in this context, the electron exhibits a high degree of both wave and particle properties, which are partially coherent or compatible with each other per the logic. The synthesis operator ⊕ further allows representing the integration of the particle and wave aspects into a higher-order unified description that transcends their apparent opposition in a creative/emergent way as per the quantum phenomenon. Electron ⊕ ~Electron could capture the genuine possibilistic superposition that transcends the classical dichotomies. Quantum Entanglement Another quintessential quantum paradox is the phenomenon of entanglement, where particles can remain indefinitely correlated in their properties over arbitrary distances, schematically violating the classical assumptions of separability, locality, and independence. Once in an entangled state, the individual particles lose their autonomy and must be modeled as a holistic, non-separable system exhibiting correlations that cannot be accounted for by classical probability theory. The both/and logic allows us to formally represent and reason about these non-local, holistic correlations. We can use the coherence operator to quantify how well separable vs. holistic descriptions fit the entangled system's behavior based on violations of Bell inequalities. We can assign entangled particles a high truth value for being in a unified, non-separable state and a low value for classical separability. The synthesis operator ⊕ comes into play to represent the transcendent, novel whole that emerges for the entangled system - one where properties are fundamentally de-localized and reciprocally coordinated across the individual particle descriptors. Descriptions like "SpinUp ⊕ ~SpinUp" capture the genuinely holistic and paradoxical condition evinced. The principle of holistic contradiction further allows logically deriving the non-separable correlations from any product state descriptor, formalizing how entanglement forces abandoning classical separability assumptions. Quantum Theory Interpretation More broadly, the both/and logic provides a coherent framework for interpreting and modeling the paradoxical phenomenology of quantum theory that has resisted reconciliation with classical representations. Principles like complementarity, uncertainty, non-locality, and wave-function collapse all involve apparent contradictions between operational predictions, measurements, and visualizable physical mechanisms. The multivalent structure allows assigning multiple dynamically-shifting truth values to propositions about particle/field properties, detecting vs not detecting events, local vs non-local causality, unitary evolution vs stochastic collapse etc. based on context. Coherence values between these assign degrees of compatibility. The synthesis operator captures the higher-order transcendence involved in intrinsically indeterminate or "complementary" variables. Holistic contradiction allows formalizing the genuinely paradoxical possibilistic condition where for instance, "SpinUp" and "~SpinUp" both arise as co-realizable eventualities for a single quantum event, in a way barred by classical logic. In essence, the both/and logic allows coherently representing and regimenting the intrinsically paradoxical phenomenology and interpretational paradoxes of quantum theory itself, in a way moving beyond the internal contradictions that have plagued classical analyses and models. Its paraconsistent, multivalent structure allows quantum theory's apparent contradictions and complementarities to be rendered formally consistent and expressible. By embracing the both/and logic native to quantum phenomena, the monadological framework promises fundamental advances in our capacity to model, predict, and perhaps even rationally steer the quantum realm. Where classical logic and models fail by being too restrictive, the both/and logic equips us with a radically expanded descriptive capacity befitting quantum theory's intrinsically paradoxical nature.

In the channel "dialect", the video "What Time Dilation ACTUALLY Is In Relativity " uses air to produce the same effect as light clock, the new video "How Superposition Causes Length Contraction" uses doppler effect to produce the length contraction effect. I like those explanations myself.

If you read Einstein, he doesn’t say he got rid of the Ether with Special Relativity, rather he says empty space and the ether are the same. So why refer to them by different names? I believe Minkowski was the one who geometrised Special Relativity into the form we know today, that is a non-Euclidean four dimensional space.

Do you think the ether gives us key understanding gravity? If so can we make antigravity possible? What are the implications for understanding infinity?

"WHAT IS A FIELD?" It is the combination of two "sets of INFORMATIONS": the first "set" is the POSITION. The second set is a "TENSOR". If that tensor is a "0 rank" tensor, we call it a SCALAR. "Rank 1" is a VECTOR. Etc. In fact, the picture you are watching right now IS a "FIELD". Each pixel is defined by its (x,y) coordinates and 3 "colors" (scalars)... You could think of a video as a "vector" field if you could correctly "predict" how the (x,y) coordinates of each pixels would change from picture A to picture B... That's what the video compression algorithms try to do BTW: predict the movement of (groups of) pixels with vectors, and apply a small "correction" if needed! What if every "physical field" was, in fact, the exact same thing? But instead of "colors", they'd be build with informations like "gravitational mass", "electric charge" and "magnetic charge", or scalars like "temperature", "pressure", "density", etc? If so, it would mean that what particle physicists are trying to do is to "understand how a computer screen actually works by breaking it with a big hammer" (LHC at CERN), then naming and studying each individual "screen particle" while asking for more funds to build a bigger hammer (the future giant LHC). Wouldn't that be really dumb?

How does the idea of ether relate to the theory of dark matter?

.....isn't the higgs field the equivalent to the either?

The "ether" is the electromagnetic field.

Close; but no horseshoe. And, by the way, why wind? Unless, by wind you really mean effect. True, even in a vacuum for sound. Finally, please explain to me why when light bends around an object (a very, very massive object), it resumes its previous course, i.e., direction?

No one calls a field a property it is a value that exists everywhere in differing rates, besides that gold

Good question. The "entity" that you keep referencing is space itself. The fields are just sets of values at each coordinate of space. When you say "something" exists in some space, such as an electron at a particular point in space, it is itself a fluctuation of a quantum field. Any matter that you can observe is fluctuations in some field. Fields are not properties of some matter, rather matter arises from fields. At the very small scale matter and energy in those fields are practically indistinguishable and spontaneously interchange. And there is only one field throughout the universe for each particle in the standard model. If you want to understand better you should read more about Quantum Field Theory. It is the most accurate model of reality mankind has ever come up with.

I think that nowdays ether = sea of virtual particles. Btw I wonder if density of vacuum can be different in different space regions.

Your work is very interesting! It reminds me of David Harriman's writings and lectures on physics. Are you familiar with him?

I was listening to Revelation space by Alastair Reynolds about a month or two ago. And I started thinking like how exactly would anti-gravity work because in the story they're like three or four hundred years beyond us actually no 600 or 700 years beyond us and they still haven't discovered gravity. So then I asked and I was thinking like okay so then what exactly is causing gravity like how could you theoretically you would need to move something up. But it's not actually just moving up you have to crawl along something. What exactly causes gravity because you have to circumvent the cause of gravity in order to actually have an impact on gravity itself. So I just had a thought experiment. And if space could only contain so much energy or information at a single point. Then basically bigger objects as they come together would require more energy and thus more of this base layer of reality in order to exist. So basically what you call the aether. I named quanta. Add these are the base particles of the universe whatever we're vibrating on. Whatever we're inducing some sort of change on. So when I discovered this video as I woke up today that was insane that you had followed a similar train of thought. Obviously not the same train of thought that I followed but you got to the same or similar conclusion that I did. And so basically the idea that I came up with is that these quanta exist all separated by a Planck lengths. And they can only contain so much energy of oscillation within each.

Matter. Also referred to as scalar free physical constants of permittivity and permeability. Black holes feed on this.

Thank you so much. I have always wondered about the medium which light waves through. However, I work in the finance industry and have always thought that it's just my science imagination and the idea is so crazy that any physist hearing it would just laugh it off.

The "what is waving" is a reasonable question but this is ... Tell me you don't know what an aether is ... What you are talking about here is MEDIA. What MEDIA do these waves propagate through... People now call it "quantum FOAM" which could also be a for of an aether. The aether isn't what's "waving" but rather light and matter are what's waving as they propagate through the quantum foam/aether

Have you come across the Dialect channel on RU-vid? I watched a bunch of their videos and thought they were pretty interesting because they explored a number of questions I had (e.g. "if velocity is relative, why isn't acceleration? Does acceleration really resolve the twin paradox?") that I had not heard adequately addressed anywhere else. They also go into ether based explanations for length contraction and time dilation.

I have always been fascinated by Newton's equivalence principle (that gravitational mass and inertial mass are the same). Maybe this relates to the geodesics that matter follow, that the substance has some density that causes gravity and inertia?

It is difficult to image "fields" existing without there being some kind of fabric-like space-time that holds values. And there are different fields for different forces which do not behave in exactly the same way. So it's easy to imagine multiple layers of different fabrics or aether. Maybe there are more forces, potential values, of something in space-time. Maybe the collection of all these forces are what space-time is. Similarly there are arguments about what numbers themselves are. We shouldn't dismiss the earlier ideas of what aether is. Science is somewhat a social construct and is susceptible to effects like the fashion industry. BTW, wasn't Einstein working on a concept of variable speed of light due to massive objects? I think this video shows worthy pursuit.

Thank you for providing such a simple and elegant argument for the existence of an ether, as well as a highly-informed breakdown of the confusions surrounding the Michelson-Morley experiment and special relativity. You are clearly a philosophical minded individual who is capable of thinking outside the box, in addition to being a very articulate and proficient public speaker. Looking forward to digging into your other videos!

I really like the idea of the ether, but where does it end? I mean, if a physical medium is itself made of matter, which is just a cluster of fields, then wouldn't the ether itself be a series of fields acting as a medium for more emergent fields? Is it really turtles all the way down, or does it all start from something else?

Many would probably consider such rationalizations to be ludicrous. However, in my opinion, being as there yet remain so many open ended questions etc. as pertaining to physics. Any real scientist would be open to further explorations as concerning an aether. I have always wanted the michelson morley experiment further explored. As how could so much rest upon one experiment conducted over a hundred years ago ? And because there were many great minds who adamantly promoted its existence. 😮

The "ether" is a property of time, not space. Hence, we do not see any evidence of the ether wind as Earth travels through space. We do however see evidence of a ether wind which manifests as time dilation and length contraction. To measure the ether wind, one mirror and the apparatus should be at rest relative to the other mirror. Light can travel anywhere in space from 0 to 45 degrees on a spacetime diagram. Light cannot travel through space outside of its' light cone. This implies that the ether wind imposes a speed limit. At 0% of the speed of light, the ether wind is a tail wind. At this speed, all quantum fields cease to exist. At > 0% of the speed of light, the ether wind is a cross wind. At this speed, the existence of quantum fields and their degrees of unification is relative to the velocity of a particle relative to the ether wind. At 100% of the speed of light the ether wind is a headwind. At this speed, all quantum fields are unified. From this we can hypothesize that the ether wind is equal to the speed of light and that all quantum fields (and space) emerge from interactions opposing the ether wind. The ether wind is absolute and omnipresent; the ether wind is time.

Is Earth moving fast enough for Lorentz contraction/expansion to be a thing?

I'm very for out of the box thinking. Gravity bends space+time. How would ether explain gravity time dilation?

If what is said in this video is right, then virtual particles changing into real particles, as at event horizon of a BH, then maybe either has a relation with vacuum field (ground state).

One of the problems of the so called ether is, it is at absolute rest with everything else in the universe. Hence motion is not relative but absolute. Hence if you're going to resurrect the ether theory you should be able to assign absolute velocities to every object in the universe relative to the ether that is at absolute rest. Can you perform any experiment to determine the absolute velocity of any object in the universe?

8:40 it is not an assumption, Bradley and Maxwell showed that. If this was not the case than electronics would not work in motion.

If you want the next revolution, the thing to look out for is phenomena that is described by quantum mechanics but does not fit either the wave or particle models. This is highlighted by John H. Conway and Simon Kochen's "Strong Free Will Theorem" which is a mathematical proof on the results of experiments in spin entanglement. Entanglement is not explained by wave or particle models, and the "Strong Free Will Theorem" throws a wrench in the the mix by implying that "if experimenters have a certain freedom [in setting up the experiment], then particles have exactly the same kind of freedom. Indeed, it is natural to suppose that this latter freedom is the ultimate explanation of our own." However, since the particles express freewill or choice without a mechanism of that process, then there must be a "field" of freewill underlying quantum reality that provides that function. Now there's a bit of unexpected physics. Is freewill a particle -- a force? That's still outside mainstream where they are trying to eliminate freewill in order to maintain a wholly deterministic model.

Position, length and angle are considered mathematically to be properties of space, but these are not properties of a thing, or at least a not physical thing. It might be argued that physical space is required to contain physical things for an inertial frame to be defined. Space then being the separation between bodies. This is yet another indicator that all properties are RELATIONS. I am an advocate of Parmenides who 2500 years ago spoke against the notion of the VOID, which was a issue even then! So I am partial to the idea of the ether, but I also think it is unnecessary to prop up REALITY with a primitive belief in a materialist substratum (as modern atomism does). The clincher is the fact that the ether seems to be fundamentally undetectable. This must be telling us something! So on balance I think it was probably wise for physics to jettison this idea.

Odd. Why do many dismiss AE's spacetime matrix as the medium for everything? It can expand and contract and is quantized. The energy released by a 'particle' in motion is the phenomena we call radiation, gravity, and time. Off topic... Virtual 'particles' can only release gravity on AD's matrix - g-wave - because they don't have enough time to do anything else. It is not the source of dark matter. If such a thing exsit. Yes to dark energy with no source to link back to like normal matter. It must radiate away. However there are many virtual particles popping in and out of existence. 5 to 6 times as much using current measurements. Summary: Aether is AE's space time matrix.

Is there an end to this ether substance? Where do you think it came from? If we somehow discover the true nature of this ether substance making a unified field theory there should be still some more discovers after the ether. I am saying that it should not be the end of physics. Perhaps having the proper corrected understand of set theory in mathematics will allow this like without calculus Newtons 3 laws would not be possible. Can the ether explain faster than causilty?

Asking permission to use your work to make the breakthrough? And maybe win a Nobel prize?

Have you seen my 2 hour and 28 minute video on this topic?

What do you think it is? In the photon equation for momentum (h), which is a circumference length of the (hbar as the radius) and hbar is a quantized scaling factor for matter. It's like a physical field of angular motion quanta, the angular motion quanta is the action that carries the wave. The Aether is like a high temperature small scale turbulent path of least resistance algorithm (where it's in a low resistance (vortex) of potential energy, till acted upon [quantum unit of action = hbar]) I'm starting to think (dipole donut field of angular motion quanta), but I don't know. Here is the algorithm I believe (3d Vector field, for each vector calculate the average between itself and it's neighbors, store in temp till frame is calculated, repeat). You'll notice that you will need fast compute to compute longer time frames, it's demanding and the time evolution is slow.

Speaking of waves, there is too much hand-waving, and not enough equations. As a layperson enthusiast eager to learn, when listening to or reading people like Sean Carroll, one feels like one is actually getting smarter about theoretical physics and quantum field theory and the like; one does not feel that with this video here. I wanted to learn something new and explanatory but I didn't or couldn't.

⨀ - The Quintessence or Ether, representing the zeronoumenal substrate. Ties to vacuum energy equations and quantum field theories describing spacetime curvature and virtual particles.

Unzicker, from the eponymous youtube channel, treats light as having variable speed. It fits into all this rather well.

The speed of the wave through a medium is proportional to the young modulous of the medium. I think u kno tht. So, a medium that carries light will hv extremely high young modulous. Now tell me, if alll of space is filled with such a medium, how on earth anything ever moves and not caught inside that medium like insect trapped in solid resin? If your answer is - tht it doesn't interact with anything at all, then, tell me, on on earth oscillation in that mediium interacts with everything? And what's the mass of that thing? How on earth that doesn't affect the movement of anything?

Gravity is an acceleration field of the ether, hence the so-called equivalence principle.

Space-time is something everyone experiences in their every waking moment. Space-time described in relativity is the composition of regular space around us and regular time we keep with watches. Somehow that's an 'abstract' thing? And Aether, that's impossible to experimentally detect, doesn't make any new predictions and contains contradictory attributes is a "physical" thing? Notice that, the concept of Aether doesn't even point to any new physics like Relativity principle of SR pointed to equivalence principle and General Relativity. True test of a scientific theory is when it can predict newer stuff, point to newer concept on top of explaining the old. Does Aether theories has that?

A difficulty for the Einstein story is to say exactly how we specify the laws of nature.

Possiblity 1: Light is not what we think. So it is not a wave. We just think it is. Possiblity 2: Light is a wave occures on dark matter. Possiblity 3: It is just a function of the simulation. Actually there is nothing such as light. Possiblity 4: Light is actually a small matter moves at light speed. Because of its speed it cant hold itself solid as matter unless hitting another matter.

I think this argument about how can you have a "wave if nothing is waving" kinda betrays a lack of understanding of fields. And when you got the Lorentzian contractions, that 'cancelling out' bit means you just created aether as something as immeasurable as string theory.

Thanks for your interesting video. Area under a curve is often equivalent to energy. Buckling of an otherwise flat field shows a very rapid growth of this area to a point. If my model applies, it may show how the universe’s energy naturally developed from the inherent behavior of fields. Your subscribers might want to see this 1:29 minutes video showing under the right conditions, the quantization of a field is easily produced. The ground state energy is induced via Euler’s contain column analysis. Containing the column must come in to play before over buckling, or the effect will not work. The sheet of elastic material “system”response in a quantized manor when force is applied in the perpendicular direction. Bonding at the points of highest probabilities and maximum duration( ie peeks and troughs) of the fields “sheet” produced a stable structure when the undulations are bonded to a flat sheet that is placed above and below the core material. Some say this model is no different than plucking guitar strings. You can not make structures with vibrating guitar strings or harmonic oscillators. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wrBsqiE0vG4.htmlsi=waT8lY2iX-wJdjO3 At this time in my research, I have been trying to describe the “U” shape formed that is produced before phase change. In the model, “U” shape waves are produced as the loading increases and just before the wave-like function shifts to the next higher energy level. Over-lapping all frequencies together using Fournier Transforms, can produce a “U” shape or square wave form. Wondering if Feynman Path Integrals for all possible wave functions could be applicable here too? If this model has merit, seeing the sawtooth load verse deflection graph produced could give some real insight in what happened during the quantum jumps between energy levels. The mechanical description and white paper that goes with the video can be found on my LinkedIn and RU-vid pages. You can reproduce my results using a sheet of Mylar* ( the clear plastic found in some school essay folders. Seeing it first hand is worth the effort!

LIGHT CAN TRAVEL EVERYWHERE EVEN IN VAST VACUUM OF SPACE, BCS LIGHT CONSISTS OF BOTH MAGNETIC & ELECTRICITY - THESE 2 KEEP PROPELLING EACH OTHER WHILE THEY INTERACT IN FLIGHT USING THEIR ANGULAR MOMENTUMS. period

the 'medium' in which all particles 'travel' and all waves propagate and all fields vibrate is quite obvious....the medium is formal mathematics .... physics and its constituents and their properties are whatever mathematics say they are and the medium is the message prior to modern physics and the mathematics that created modern particles and waves and fields all reality was a kind of holy godness gifted to us by the deity according to the best experts of the day

The speed of light is not constant. It accelerates at the exact rate that they think they universe is expanding at.