N. 3 - 21 aprile 2001 - Giano Bifronte

302
Einstein and the Ether
Ludwik Kostro
(Apeiron, Montreal, 2000)
"Whether gravitational, electrical, and nuclear
interactions can be encompassed within a unified
theoretical structure, and whether such a structure
will be conceived as a plenary space with physical
properties, remains to be seen. But if the history of
the successive dynasties of aether is any guide,
we can eventually proclaim:
The luminiferous aether is dead!
Long live the aether!" (Owen Gingerich)
Nowadays, nobody talks any longer about the ether in scientific
ortohodox books, in higher school or university classes, etc., yet this
concept has been one of the corner stones of many rational
interpretation of natural phaenomena for a great long time - to such an
extent that a good physicist recently wrote to us that all XIXth century
physics tried to "prove the existence of the ether which was later proved
not to exist".
If we ask why the ether has disappeared from the major scenes of our
knowledge of Nature, everybody will answer that Einstein has proved,
with his celebrated theory of relativity, that the ether does not exist.
This was one of those concepts that old physicists were accustomed to
use in their "primitive" speculations, but today, luckily, it has been
completely overthrown, together with other similar relics of
"superstition", by XXth century scientists. It was in that time that
mankind has realized the greatest achievements of ever in science and
technology, which can be interpreted as the goal of a long walk, that
began thanks to such men like Copernic, Galilei, Descartes, Newton,...
just sprung out from the darkness of Middle Ages.
Thus, "common people", and even the "common scientist", would be
surprised in reading this book (about 240 pp.), written by the physicist
and philosopher Ludwik Kostro, and intended for physicists as well as
for historians of science, philosophers, or in general for any people
interested in the development of scientific culture. As a matter of fact, it
is entirely dedicated to the troublesome relationships between the