Aether 'Density'

Here's a little pure speculation for you. One can ask, what is the relative contribution of each primary electric field to the medium at a given location? One possibility is that the 'weighting factor' is proportional to the electric field strength at a given location. Since the electric field strength falls off as the inverse square of the distance from the source particle, one would expect pretty big variations in the effective state of 'rest' of the medium and the propagation speed of the medium. In other words, stars (and planets) would tend to carry their own state of rest with them. For example, the dominating medium around the earth would more or less move with the earth, and we might expect to see significant variations in the characteristic speed (speed of light) with distance from the earth.

On the other hand, if there was no weighting factor at all, in others words if the contribution of each field element was completely independent of field strength, then one might expect the characteristic speed to be totally constant and the state of rest to be solely determined by the 'average' state of motion of all particles in the universe.

Now, if the weighting factor were dependent on the inverse distance from the source particle (like the electric potential), then one would expect an intermediate result. For example, the characteristic speed would be nearly constant, varying just a tiny bit near massive objects. And friends, this is precisely what we see. Likewise, the local effective state of rest of the medium would almost solely determined by the average state of motion of all particles in the universe.

Ernst Mach dimly perceived that something like this could be the case. In a sense, local physical laws are determined by the large-scale structure of the universe.

Pointing Out Some Questionable Physics

I think I'll just go ahead and lay out some items to be explored.

1. There are no photons. It all started with a misinterpretation of the results of the experiments on the photelectric effect. As Augustin Fresnel worked so hard to demonstrate, electromagnetic radiation is purely a wave phenomenon.

2. Even though 19th century physicists were unable to grasp it, there is a medium of propagation of electromagnetic radiation. Up until about 1899 it was clear to physicists that any wave phenomenon is a disturbance propagating through some sort of medium ... by definition.

3. There is no such thing as mass converting to energy and vice versa. There is no E=mc-squared. I need to go back and carefully do my homework to see exactly how that odd idea was introduced and try to show that it has no real basis in nature. Just to give one small example, I feel fairly certain that the energy of an atomic bomb can be accounted for purely by Coulomb forces.

4. The tiny 'bending' of light passing near massive objects can be explained by a slightly lower speed of light close to such objects. I think it will eventually be shown that the characteristic speed of the medium is slightly less near massive objects, i.e., there is a dependence on "aether density" as it were. There are undoubtedly no such things as 'black holes'; this is an inadmissible extrapolation (orders of magnitude) from the miniscule observed 'bending'.

5. Lorentz and Fitzgerald will eventually be shown to have been on the right track regarding the odd null results of the Michelson-Morley experiments. There must be a certain physical change in the dimensions of objects moving through the medium. The effect is a result of propagation delay changing the equilibrium spacing of neighboring atoms in a solid. It will turn out that the Michelson-Morley experiment was precisely the wrong experiment to measure the speed of objects moving through the medium.