The Michelson–Morley made an experiment to detect the substance that filled the vacuum of empty space that allowed light waves to propagate thru a vacuum. To their great disappointment, they failed to detect interference in the split light waves that would reveal that the earth was traveling thru a medium.
Some music while you read...
To get around this paradox of a wave without a medium to wave, Einstein developed a mathematical model that fused the 3 dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a mathematical theoretical 4-dimensional continuum he called "space-time continuum". He claimed that an aether was no longer necessary for light waves to travel. Using his space-time continuum, results in many paradoxes that defy common sense. It allows for the deformation the size and mass of particles, as well as the deformation of their time. It allows for particles to have zero size, infinite mass and have their time stop.
Experiments showed that light was a wave that traveled thru the empty vacuum of space
Other experiments showed that light was a particle called a photon.
Our reality is made from particles and energy that we can directly detect in our universe. We detect particles by their mass, and energy by their motion. We detect them using photon detectors that are improving constantly in microscopes and telescopes. We can now directly see almost 25% of the matter and energy in our universe. The rest is beyond our present reach to detect and we call it dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. We use quantum theory to zoom into the continuous analog space-time which is exact and deterministic to get a closeup glimpse into the vacuum that permeates space which is smeared out and probabilistic.
Quantum theory describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles. It reduces Einstein's analog space-time continuum, into a digital discrete model made up of pixels much like a photograph.
The points in between the pixels are indeterminate and based on statistics. It is in these parts of the matrix that account for all of the many paradoxes and strange results that defy common sense such as a particle being in more than one place at any one time
and particles separated by great distances being entangled
and particles spontaneously coming into existence without any cause.
Quantum theory claims that properties like position of tiny particles are only determined when they are observed. Much like a spinning coin is both heads and tails while it is spinning and is only observed as either heads or tails by stopping it to observe it.
Dark matter is a form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe and about a quarter of its total energy density. Dark matter is called dark because it does not interact with photons making it undetectable.
Dark energy is an unknown form of energy which is hypothesized to permeate all of space. It is the energy that counteracts gravity and is the cause why the universe expands at an accelerating rate. Dark energy contributes 68% of the total energy in the observable universe. Like with gravity, the force of dark energy is much less than that found in atoms and photons. However, like gravity, it dominates the mass–energy of the universe because it is uniform across space. The undetected aether that was supposed to permeate all of space can be a new type of energy field or fluid in space, offering a fifth fundamental force.
Black holes are regions of space-time exhibiting gravity so strong that no particles or even photons can escape from it. This can thought of as a breaking the rules that space-time adheres to.
Black holes come in all sizes. Black holes of stellar mass are formed when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. Super massive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies. Black holes, big and small can be thought of as the elusive dark matter. Quantum theory predicts that a black hole can evaporate by emitting radiation, but with a temperature too low to measure and detect making it impossible to observe. This can account for some of the elusive dark energy that is responsible for our universe expanding at an accelerating rate.
Black holes can be a way the universe divides and multiplies. A black hole can grow sufficiently large to cause a sufficiently large tear in the 4 dimensional space-time continuum of the universe. When a black hole finds itself at the edge of universe, it can be ejected and all matter it has attracted, absorbed and accumulated explodes in a big bang to form a new universe. It is like a bud of a tree that slowly accumulates enough material until it bursts away to form a new tree.
The fabric of the universe remains undetected because the constituents that make up this aether are too small and the photons used to detect it are too large. Like trying to detect individual air molecules with your fingers.
It is the medium that defines the characteristics of the particles and the energy within it. Just like air and water define how birds and fish fly and swim. Like air and water molecules, the aether is not continuous. It is made up of very small particles that are fixed to each other and can move only just enough to carry a wave.
The aether allows light waves to travel thru it at a fixed constant velocity, just like air molecules allow sound waves to travel thru it at a fixed and constant rate.
The aether can be compared to a photograph made from pixels. The undefined empty space between the pixels is the cause of all the paradoxes quantum physics confronts us with.
Photons are vibrating particles that move in and fill the aether like smoke fills the air. They emit waves like a tuning fork. The dual wave/particle property of photons is realized because they stop vibrating when disturbed by bumping into another particle. Scientists interpret this as “observation collapsing the wave into a particle”.
Photons vibrate with their distinctive frequency and distinctive phase. Photons that have the same frequency and phase are said to be entangled. Like a pair of gloves, one is right handed and the other is left handed. They have identical resonant frequency and changes to one causes a corresponding change in its twin. Like ringing one tuning fork causes another bell to resonate. Scientists interpret this as “spooky action at a distance”.
Photons can move thru aether much faster than the waves they emit, just like super sonic jets flying faster than sound. Just like a super sonic jet is seen in a different position than where its sound is coming from, photons traveling faster than the speed of light are seen smeared over space. Scientists interpret this as the “superposition” properties of quantum particles being in more than one place at the same time.
Traveling at faster than light speeds, the waves that photons emit are compressed together at their leading edge. This gives photons a particle face and a wave tail accounting for their dual wave/particle property.
Experiments using oscillating atoms show that the faster they move thru space and the more gravity they receive, the slower they vibrate and the heavier they get. Scientists interpret this as “time slowing down to a stop” and “mass increasing to infinity“.
It is like the faster you eat, the slower and heavier you get.
Including time as a fundamental dimension of reality along with the 3 dimensions of space,causes a paradoxical distortion of reality. Space and shapes and time and aging get distorted and eventually collapse to zeros and explode to infinities.
Motion on the other hand is constrained to a maximum speed that is so slow that it takes 8 minutes for the light from our sun to reach us. Time is a measurement of motion only and the faster some atoms move thru space or the more they are stressed by gravity, the slower they vibrate and the slower they measure time.
Our aether is so elusive and difficult to detect because we travel thru it at such a slow speed. Our motion thru the aether is almost as slow as one can go. The maximal speed of particles that can travel thru space is limited to the speed of light which takes over 5 hours to reach Pluto, at the edge of our solar system and over 4 years to reach the nearest star and 200,000 years to cross our universe.
Einstein's 4 dimensional space-time continuum gives us an analog reality that is mathematical and therefore infinitely continuous and thus infinitely exact in position. When the speed of light is reached, as slow as it is, the mathematics break down with zeros and infinities and lead to possibilities that defy common sense.
The existence of an aether, a fabric of space, allows only common sense possibilities and no paradoxes.
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