Alternatives for Aether

Everyday experience of natural phenomena shows material things are moved by contact between a ‘force-applying body’ and a ‘force-receiving body’. Thus, logically, we came to conclude that for any action to take place between two real 3D matter-bodies there must be a contact between them. Nature of this contact is expressed as action of an effort (force) between these bodies. Any ‘cause and effect’ without a discernable contact between participating 3D matter-bodies, or an ‘action at a distance through empty space,’ contradicts common sense and has been an unacceptable notion since earliest of time. Such actions are usually credited to super-natural phenomena. Aether was discovered during the heyday of aether-theories. According to which all space is permeated by a medium capable of transmitting efforts (forces) between 3D matter-particles. The electric fields and magnetic fields were interpreted as descriptions of the state of strain/stress of the aether, so that the location of stored energy in space was like as it would be in a compressed spring. With the abandonment of the (vague) aether-theories, following the rise of relativity theory, this imaginary model ceased to have validity. Whenever the concept of space is unable to logically explain any physical phenomena or the nature of transmission of certain actions and effects over a distance is not understood, even today, the aether (in the forms of various fields or mysterious force-carrying particles or mathematical constructs) is resorted to as a conceptual solution of the transmitting medium. This is because an all-encompassing universal medium is essential to destroy the myth of ‘action at a distance through empty space’, which is the worst illogical assumption of modern science. Currently different types of substitutes are used instead of space. However, descriptions of how these ‘aether-substitutes’ function remain vague, but its existence in the forms of various fields or imaginary particles or mathematical constructs is required by common sense and thus not questioned. Different types of fields, concentrated forms of energy, imaginary entities with negative existence, force-carrying particles, structure-less space capable of distortions, mathematical constructs, etc. are used in various theories. Each of these entities is different from others and suits only a particular theory. Each of them proposes different types of fields or structure with vague properties of aether. They have no common properties. They seem to exist without existence. They are mainly used for conceptual explanations and mathematical treatments of theories concerned. Such tendencies have taken physics far from conceptual understanding and caused its heavy dependence on mathematical analysis. Mathematics may be a very good tool to understand physics, but it should not dictate (illogical) physical theories.