The Paradox of Science - William Atkinson

0:00the paradox of science. In the days of the ancients, when the philosophers found themselves unable to account for any particular class of phenomena, they bundled it together and referred it to a suppositis something that they called the ether. Finding this an easy way to get rid of vexatious questions, they fell into the custom and the habit grew upon them. Soon there were a dozen or more different kind of ethers in vogue, each explaining something else, the something else, by the way, being things that science now feels that it understands pretty well. These ethers grew to be like the various vapors of the ancients, a dignified term for, we don't know, a respectable road for retreat under the semblance of an advance. These ethers became a scientific scandal and caused a lax mode of thinking among students of those times, and so they were finally abolished and relegated to the scrap pile of science, where they lay for many centuries until a comparatively

1:04recent period, when at least one of them was hauled forth, dusted, freshened up a little and placed upon its old pedestal. This revamped ether, referred to, was the ether of Aristotle. Aristotle, as we know, was a famous Greek philosopher who lived about 350 BC, about 2,250 years ago. He was a good man and a celebrated philosopher, but was somewhat deficient in scientific knowledge. Although he knew many things and uttered many wise thoughts, he was under the impression that the breath of man entered the heart instead of the lungs, that the back part of the skull was empty, and so on. He was without the advantages of a modern training, which was not his fault, however. Well, Aristotle conceived the idea of a universal ether, which he thought provided all space, and with which he accounted for the passage of light from the sun and stars, the movements of

2:06the planets, and various other physical phenomena. It is not known whether Aristotle really believed in this ether, or whether he merely used it as a speculative hypothesis following the ether habit of his contemporaries. At any rate, his theory served its purpose, lived, flourished, declined, and died, at least seemed to be dead. But its corpse was resurrected in modern times and used to account for diverse things. This does not mean that modern thinkers really believe in the universal ether. They merely assume it as a working hypothesis, until something better is offered. Its principle modern use is to account for the transmission of light from the sun and stars to the earth. It was held that a thing could not act where it was not, and so it became necessary to account for the transmission, either by the theory that small particles of substance were thrown off from the sun and traveled to the earth, or else that there was some medium of communication by

3:10means of vibrations, etc. Newton held to the first theory, but his hypothesis went down before the ether advocates, who advanced the wave theory, although it seems that, like Ben Quo's ghost, Newton's theory will not stay down, and is now taking on a new lease of life, owing to the discovery of the corpuscle and radiant matter. The wave theory philosophers asserted that the light and heat of the sun were thrown off in the shape of force or energy, and transformed into waves in and of a hypothetical ether Aristotle's own, which waves were carried to the earth, were meeting substance they were again transformed into heat and light. It was known that light and heat traveled at the rate of 184,000 miles per second, and therefore the waves of the ether were considered to have that speed. The wave theory seemed to fit the facts of the case better than the Newtonian theory of corpuscles, although the latter has always been considered as better explaining

4:14certain phenomena than the new theory, and so the ether wave became generally accepted, and remains so today, although recent discoveries are causing a disturbance in the scientific camp regarding the question. Later it was discovered that the electricity traveled at the same rate is light and heat, and the wave of the ether theory was thus thought to have additional verification, and electricity came under the law and remained there until the electron discovery, which is causing much disturbance among those interested in the study of electricity. Briefly stated, the theory of the universal ether is this, that prevating all space in the universe, not only between planets, stars, and suns, but also filling in the cracks between molecules and atoms as well, there is a subtle substance in and through which the waves of light, heat, electricity, and magnetism travel at the rate of 184,000 miles per second. This substance

5:17is said to be matter that is not matter. In fact, science does not venture to say just what it is, although it freely states just what some of its properties must be, and alas, these properties are most contradictory and opposite to each other as we shall see as we proceed. The universal ether is purely hypothetical. It has been called a necessity of science, something assumed for the purpose of explaining or accounting for certain phenomena. It is undemonstrated and unproved. In fact, may truthfully be said to be undemonstratable and unprovable. Some have gone so far as to say that its claimed properties and qualities render it unthinkable as well. And yet, science finds itself compelled to assume that the ether, or something like it, exists, or else cease speculating about it. It belongs to the realm of pure theory and yet many writers treated as if it were a

6:22positively demonstrated and proven fact. Let us examine into the nature of science's problem and her attempted solution and the trouble arising therefrom. Light travels at the rate of 184,000 miles per second. Remember that light and heat are that which we call by those names only when considered in connection with substance. According to the theory, light in the sun's atmosphere is transformed into a light wave of the ether on its travels to the earth and only when the wave comes in contact with the substance on the earth's body or atmosphere does it become again transformed into light as we know it. In its travels through space, it meets with no substance and has nothing to turn into light, consequently space, between worlds is in a state of absolute darkness. The same is true of heat and inner world space is absolutely cold, although passing through it are countless

7:23heat waves of great intensity which later on will be transformed into heat when they reach the substance, the earth. The same is true of electricity and magnetism. Although the ether, as we have seen, is a purely theoretical substance yet science has found it reasonable to conclude that it must be possessed of certain attributes in order to account for certain known facts. Thus, it is said to be frictionless, else the world's suns and planets could not pass freely through it, nor could the light and heat waves travel at such a tremendous rate. It also is thought to have something like inertia because motion once started in it persist until stopped, because it is at a state of rest until motion is imparted to it, and because it takes a fraction of time to impart motion to it, it is thought to be different from substance in any of its known forms. For many reasons, among such being the fact that no known form of substance could carry vibrations through space at

8:24the rate of 184,000 miles a second, and light and heat waves travel at that rate and have forms in shapes and links of their own. Light, for instance, vibrates on two planes and a light wave is something like a Greek cross, thus having a horizontal and a vertical line or plane a vibration, and the ether cannot be a fluid of any degree because a fluid cannot transmit cross vibrations at all, and it cannot be a solid because a solid could not stand vibrations at such a terrific speed and still remain a solid, and yet to transmit the two plane light waves, the ether must have a certain degree of rigidity else the waves could not travel. Lord Kelvin estimated this degree of rigidity as about 19 billionth of the rigidity of the hardest steel, so you see science has compelled to assume that the ether is a continuous frictionless medium possessing both inertia and rigidity,

9:28some scientists have thought it to be a kind of elastic jelly. Of the ether, professor, Oliver Lodge has said, we have to try and realize the idea of a perfectly continuous subtle, incompressible substance, pervading all space, and penetrating between the molecules of ordinary matter, which are embedded in it, and connected to one another by its means, and we must regard it as the one universal medium by which all actions between bodies are carried on. This then is its function to act as the transmitter of motion and energy. To give you an idea of the wonderful thing that scientists compelled to think of the ether as being, by reason of the qualities it is compelled to ascribe to it, although it confesses itself unable to imagine the nature of the thing, which it has created in bits by the adding and bestowing of qualities which were made necessary by the logical requirements of the case. Let us take a hurried view of the thing,

10:33as the several departments of science say it must be thought of. To meet the requirements of the case, science says that the universal ether must be substance infinitely more rare and evanescent than the finest gas or vapor known to science, even in its rarest condition. It must convey heat in the manner of an infinitely solid body, and yet it must not be a solid. It must be transparent and invisible. It must be frictionless and yet incompressible. It cannot be a fluid. It cannot have attraction for substance, such as all substance has, nor can it have weight, that is, it is not subject to gravitation. It is beyond the reach of any known scientific instrument, even of the greatest power, and it refuses to register itself in any way, either to senses or instruments. It cannot be known of itself, but may only be recognized as existing by the things for which it acts

11:35as a medium or transmitting agent. It must convey energy and motion, yet it must not take up any part of either from the matter in its midst. It must not absorb any of the heat, light, or electricity. It must fill up the spaces between the worlds, as well as the most minute space between the molecules, atoms, and corpuscles, or any other minute particle of substance, either known by name to science now, or which may be discovered or imagined later as a necessity of some conception regarding the nature of substance. In short, the universal ether, in order to do the things attributed to it, must be more solid than solids, more vapor-like and gas-like than vapor or gas, more fluid than fluids, infinitely less rigid than steel, and yet infinitely stronger than the strongest steel. It must be a substance having the qualities of a vacuum. It must be continuous and not composed

12:37of particles, atoms, or molecules. It must be in everything, in some respects, and yet a nothing in others. It must not be substance, and yet it must carry substance within its ocean of dimensions, and besides, penetrate the most minute space between the particles of substance. It must not be energy or force, and yet science has been considering energy and force, as but interruptions of rest or agitations within and of itself. So you see that this mysterious, wonderful universal ether, in order to be, at all, must be a something possessing certain qualities or properties of substance. Many of the properties of qualities being exactly contradictory and opposed to each other, and yet it cannot be substance as we know it. It is a paradoxical thing. It could only belong to another and an entirely different order of existence from that of substance as we know it.

13:42It must possess characteristics and properties of an order as yet unknown to us by name, for which the material world contains no analogy, for which substance has no analogs. It must be a far more complex thing than is even the most complex thing we call matter, or that which we call force or energy. And yet it has been claimed that it would explain both yes, contain within itself the possibility of both. And yet, in face of what has just been said, the writer must confess humbly and with a full realization of the enormity of the offense, that he supposes advancing a theory, a little further on in this book, that will attempt to identify this something, this universal ether with a something else that we know, although not through the senses or by means of instruments. Bear with him kindly, he begs of you while he proceeds gradually along the path that leads to the theory. Scientists have compared substance

14:46moving through the ether as a coarse sieve, moving through water, the letter making room for the passage of the sieve, and then closing up behind it. If this be amended by the idea that the moving sieve, while allowing the water to pass through it freely, still carries along with it a thin film of water which clings to the wires of the sieve by adhesion. If there be admitted this clinging film, as well as the body of the water through which the sieve moves, then the illustration answers quite well as a crude illustration of substance and the ether. This fact is important in view of the theory that will be advanced, further on in this book. Professor Lodge, in his interesting work, Modern Views of Electricity, mentions a number of experiments tending to prove the above mentioned fact, which is not so generally known as other facts relating to the ether. Until the discovery of radiant matter, bringing with it the new theories of the corpuscle or

15:47electron, etc., breast-decide into the dust heap many generally accepted scientific theories regarding the nature of substance. The favorite and most popular theory was what was known as the vortex ring, the theory of the atom. This theory held that the atoms of substance were but vortex rings of the ether, having had motion communicated to them in some way, and which afterwards acquired other motions, and which finally become apparent to our senses as substance. In other words, the atom was supposed to be a vortex ring of ether, acted upon by force, in some unknown way, the character, nature, and properties of the atom being determined by the shape and size of the vortex ring, the rate of motion, etc., etc. The new discoveries of science, however, have set aside, at least temporarily, this vortex ring theory, and at present science seems to find its

16:47latest thing in substance. In the theory that substance, at the last, seems to be the corpuscle or electron. In other words, after many years of fancied security in a settled theory regarding the nature of substance, science, once more, finds itself, compelled to take up the search for the origin of things. But the theory of the ether remains, and is likely to, although the name supplied to it, will change. By some, it is still believed that in the ether, a little further removed, rest the origin of substance, and that the corpuscle may be the vortex ring product instead of the atom. It will be noticed that science has made no serious attempt to connect the phenomenon of gravitation or attraction with the ether. Gravitation stands alone, an outsider among the forces, responding to none of their laws, needing no time in which to travel, needing no medium like the ether in which to transmit waves, fearing no obstacle or interfering body, but passing right through

17:52the same, different, different, different. And we shall see why this difference, when we reach the point where our theory brings us to the point where we must substitute something else, for that great paradoxical general solvent of modern science, the ether of Aristotle. We shall reach the point after a brief consideration of motion, force, and energy.