Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO GENERAL PHYSICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF THE AETHER
- CHAPTER III THE ELECTRON THEORY
- CHAPTER IV CORRELATION OF STATIONARY AND MOVING SYSTEMS
- CHAPTER V EINSTEIN ON THE RELATIVITY OF SPACE AND TIME
- CHAPTER VI THE KINEMATICS OF EINSTEIN
- CHAPTER VII THE ELECTRON THEORY OF MATTER
- PART II MINKOWSKI'S FOUR-DIMENSION WORLD
- PART III THE TRANSITION TO MECHANICAL THEORY
- INDEX
- SELECTION FROM THE GENERAL CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CHAPTER II - THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF THE AETHER
from PART I - THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO GENERAL PHYSICAL THEORY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2017
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO GENERAL PHYSICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER II THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF THE AETHER
- CHAPTER III THE ELECTRON THEORY
- CHAPTER IV CORRELATION OF STATIONARY AND MOVING SYSTEMS
- CHAPTER V EINSTEIN ON THE RELATIVITY OF SPACE AND TIME
- CHAPTER VI THE KINEMATICS OF EINSTEIN
- CHAPTER VII THE ELECTRON THEORY OF MATTER
- PART II MINKOWSKI'S FOUR-DIMENSION WORLD
- PART III THE TRANSITION TO MECHANICAL THEORY
- INDEX
- SELECTION FROM THE GENERAL CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Summary
The Early Development of the Concept of the Aether.
The foregoing chapter has been prefixed in order to prepare the way for the ideas which are to be developed in the region of electromagnetic phenomena. The phenomenon of aberration discovered by Bradley in 1727, though it revealed something of the relative motion of the earth and the stars, went no way towards clearing up the difficulty of determining an absolute velocity of bodies through space. It was quite simply explained on an emission theory of light, which makes the variation in the apparent position of the star depend on the variation in the velocity of the earth relative to a Newtonian frame of reference. Such a frame of reference is required for the purposes of explanation; but when that is completed it is only relative velocities that appear in the result, and in accordance with Newtonian theory these relative velocities or changes of velocity have a unique and defined value.
But with the rise of the undulatory theory of light and the conception of a luminiferous aether came difficulties and questions. What is this aether, and what its relation to matter? How is it influenced by the motion of the earth and other bodies through it?
The natural conception is of a fluid of some kind which may or may not penetrate into the interstices of matter. Some thinkers were for excluding it entirely from the space occupied by material bodies, a view which necessitated it being moved as they moved.
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- The Principle of Relativity , pp. 11 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011