N. 3 - 21 aprile 2001 - Giano Bifronte

elativistic ether cannot have the same meaning, and role, of the "old"
mechanical ether in a rational description of the universe: otherwise, it
cannot be properly defined a "true ether". Einstein's 4-dimensional
ether, if we wish to call it so, cannot provide the same natural causal
explanations which, on the contrary, could be supplied by the
introduction of a physical "fluid", filling up the whole 3-dimensional
space. The action, and properties, of this universal medium could, in
principle, rationally explain all physical phaenomena by means of a
simple mechanical analogy (in which, for instance, a force can be
interpreted only as a vis a tergo, a field as a perturbation of the space,
etc.). Einstein's ether, instead, cannot be thought of but in four
dimensions, which means that time must be included in the structure of
"space" itself (which is in fact more properly called space-time). This
circumstance implies that it is absolutely impossible for the human
mind to make an intuitive image of it, and to give any simple meaning
for instance to expressions like: "dynamical ether", which would have,
vice versa, an easy interpretation with respect to a 3-dimensional fluid
ether. As a matter of fact, an ether "moving" with respect to what time?
(modern cosmological models are indeed able to introduce a kind of
universal time, but it is by no means a simple concept to talk about).
Relativity definitively denies any possibility of human understanding
of natural phaenomena, that is to say of any real explanation - it
destroys for instance the tomistic proposal of describing science as
adaequatio intellectus et rei. It seems more realistic, as far as the
widespread attitude of contemporary natural philosophy is concerned,
the opinion expressed by Richard P. Feynman (see Episteme N. 1,
Umberto Bartocci, "Della natura 'ambigua' della luce"), which exhorts
men to resign to the idea that Nature is absurd for their minds:
"The theory of quantum Electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd
from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees full with
experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - absurd" (QED -
The strange theory of light and matter, Princeton University Press,
1985, p. 10).
Summing up, this would seem one of those cases 1 in which the
"public opinion" is more concrete, in accepting a lesson, than the
teacher himself, with all his doubts, after thoughts, hesitations. As a
matter of fact, it does not seem extreme to notice that, after all, ether
disappeared as a possible protagonist in the very moment when the
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