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PLAN OF 0.FIRST AND SECOND ENLIGHTENMENT 0a outline FIRST ENLIGHTENMENT 0b galilean relativity and newton 0c descartes 0d aether and dogmatic thinking SECOND ENLIGHTENMENT 0e einstein and extended relativity 0f kant and einstein Og EPR Paradox BACK TO SITE PLAN Site Plan
0D AETHER AND DOGMATIC THINKING
In Newton's Model Physics found a rigorous representation of Gravity, which ruled unchallenged for centuries and even currently continues to be the most pertinent approximation for low speeds and weak Field areas. Optics, on the contrary, lacked a consistent theory and accumulated without cease new problems and difficulties. As we said above (0B GALILEAN RELATIVITY AND NEWTON'S MODEL), physicists abandoned the corpuscular theory of light replacing it with wave theory, without, unfortunately, renouncing the dogma of mechanistic Universe. Following this dogma, they founded Optics in a supreme noumenal crutch, in a hypothetical corpuscular "substance" called Aether. It has been conceived by analogy with well known wave phenomena such as sound whose propagation is supported by discrete media, by oscillating particles of corpuscular fluids - gases or liquids. Light manifesting however, essentially different behavior than sound, like propagating through vacuum, the theory started with severe problems whose apparent solutions created other, still more complex ones, reaching the apogee after the discovery of electro-magnetic field by Maxwell. The complexity of mathematics trying obstinately to save the purely a priori noumenal crutch, surpassed that of most known theories. Aether was probably the largest waste of effort and ingenuity in the history of Science which shows how dangerous it is to found scientific theories in a priori metaphysical beliefs such as the mechanistic dogma. This seems to be a crucial lesson for us living in an epoch ruled increasingly by irrational beliefs, torn by religious, chauvinistic wars and genocides, where dogmatism is gaining all social domains including established science and education, where exorcists graduating from the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University of Vatican, together with other Creationists and Intelligent Designists infiltrate "scientific education" and start talking about resurrecting geocentric cosmology founded in sacrosanct verbatim interpretation of Genesis. Amidst this deluge of aggressive Dogmatism, the souvenir of Aether mishaps may help to save at least the Rationality of Science. As the Aether theory has been irremediably scrapped, we shall briefly mention some of its principal problems without entering into details of involved complex mathematics. Light propagates through vacuum and "matter" such as glass or water, thus the whole cosmic space must be filled by Aether, whether the apparent vacuum or "material substances". Mechanistic view suggests that Aether should present resistance to movements of stellar bodies. but no such effect has been observed and they keep on moving undisturbed through interstellar space. So, Aether had to be retackled to make it interact with light but not with "matter". Mathematic difficulties apart, how could such a "substance" be reconciled with mechanistic view, is a mystery. Apparently, the Olympus of a priori allows to stretch any point to make it fit any dogmatic construct. Anyway, all these efforts were in vain: going through glass or water light changes speed, so Aether has to interact with "matter". New mathematical crutches reached hardly ever equaled complexity having to take care of an additional difficulty, namely polarization requiring transverse light waves. Those require in turn the propagating medium to behave as a solid. So one had to deal with a "substance" which behaves like a solid with respect to light, like no-interaction vacuum with respect to "matter" of stellar bodies, while interacting with "matter" which it permeates like glass or water in a way to modify the speed of light waves in function of their length. Mathematical problems apart, the pile of contradictions involved by such "substance" should have indicated its aberration, but one would shirk nothing to save a dogmatic belief: mathematical acrobatics described a "substance" vacuum-like at macroscopic sizes, solid-like at ultramicroscopic sizes, sometimes interacting with "matter" and sometimes not. It could be expected that Maxwell's definition of light being a particular case of electro-magnetic Field propagating at the speed C, would sound the knell of Aether phantasm. Especially, considering that Galilean Relativity banning absolute speed and privileged Referentials, required this C to be the same in all IR's. But the mechanistic dogma was too strong and rather than call it in question, one sacrificed on its altar the very base of contemporary Physics, the Galilean Relativity. Aether became a universal, ABSOLUTE, absolutely immobile Referential, in which light moves at C. Strangely enough nobody noticed, or at least nobody mentioned that Mechanics being at the time defined and covariant exclusively in IR's, it was illegal to apply mechanistic principles to the absolute Aether, nor that all other IR's became absolute by virtue of their relations to Aether, thus making Physics universally unfounded and undefined. Be it as it may, light was supposed to move in other Referentials, for instance at Earth, at speed Ce = C + Ve, where: Ce is speed of light with respect to Earth, Ve is speed of Earth with respect to Aether. This assumption called for empiric verification: Ce measured as different from C would confirm the existence of Aether and determine the ABSOLUTE spead of Earth with respect to ABSOLUTELY immobile Aether. However, the Michelson-Morley experiment proved that light moved with respect to Earth at Maxwell's speed C, thus refuting the hypothesis of universal, absolute and absolutely immobile Aether. With unbelievable obstination some physicists made last superhuman efforts to save the mechanistic dogma by restructuring Aether so that it would be "dragged" by stellar bodies thus moving in their vicinity at their speed. However, this hypothesis would involve C depending of the speed of light source which was experimentally refuted and Aether finally died taking with it into the grave the metaphysical mechanistic dogmatism. This critique of the Aether Model may look rather severe, but it may by no means be interpreted as looking down on Planck, Maxwell, Lorentz and other great physicists who argued for it with ingenuity surpassing most other scientific endeavors. It is meant to emphasize the dangers of founding Theories dogmatically in a priori metaphysical beliefs, actually more serious for Socio-Political than for Physical Theories. For Physics such dangers are, after all, restricted to science. For Socio-Political domain encompassing demography, ecology, religious and ethnic fundamentalism, globalized economy, politics and warfare, they cast doubt upon the very survival of the mankind.