Dr Faustus of Modern Physics - Department of Speech, Music and ...

10.5. COVER UP: THERE IS NO AETHER 53
sold their rational souls by resorting to statistics of quanta as the quick fix of
irreversibility: With little microscopic games of roulette of quanta jumping
around, the reversible Hamiltonian mechanics suddenly became irreversible
and the society of physicists was saved from bankruptcy. At least for some
time...
But we shall see amicroscopic game of roulette also is contradictory, and
so the contradiction was only shifted from one place to another. Macroscopic
games of roulette make sense, but not microscopic because it leads to
microscopics of microscopics in a never-ending recursion.
10.5 Cover Up: There is no Aether
It was Einstein who covered up the paradox of the mysterious luminiferos
aether, using the same radical solution as Parmenides, by boldly stating:
• There is no aether!
See, if there is no aether we don’t have to worry about the nature of the
aether. This statement made Einstein into the unchallenged hero of 20th
century physics: Einstein dared what no other scientist dared to do, namely
to start off with an assumption combining breathtaking boldness with simplicity
into a sword that could cut the Gordian knot of the paradox threatening
to strangle science. To claim that “there is no aether” was as brave as
claiming that there is no God in front of the Inquisition.
But physics without any from of aether was like a human being without
any form of soul, and thus Einstein got drawn into a Faustian drama which
will uncovered by continuing reading.
At the end the reader will discover another way around the paradox which
is less radical, more clever and does not require any deal. Here is a little hint:
10.6 Marriage and Aether
Suppose you have found by going through (infinitely) many dates that following
statement is is not true:
• There is unique (ideal) partner only waiting to marry you.