Remembering ether, the substance that just had to be there
Yes, that ether that thinkers assumed to pervade otherwise empty space right into the modern era: In the 18th and 19th centuries, as physicists grappled with light, there was some debate over whether it was a wave or a particle. (Trick question—we now know it has properties of both.) Scientists thought that if light were a wave, then it needed a medium to travel through. Waves, after all, aren’t objects themselves, but the effects of movement on a substance like air or water. And so, once again minds turned toward aether. Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens first proposed the “luminiferous” or light-bearing aether as a medium for the propagation of light. It was a popular theory. Nikola Tesla held onto it Read More ›