Einstein and the ether

Although Einstein is widely credited with abolishing the ether concept, he actually introduced a new relativistic ether in 1916, developing the idea in his later works. This book relates the story of Einstein and the rebirth of the ether, demonstrating how Einstein came to reject the 19th century ether. It details three relativistic ether models developed by Einstein and Einstein's treatment of spacetime as a material entity-a "new ether" Front Matters 1 Cover 1 Title Page 2 © Ludwik Kostro, First Published 2000 3 ISBN: 0968368948 3 Contents 4 Foreword 6 Abbreviations 10 Introduction 12 Chapter-1: Einstein’s views on the ether before 1905 22 1.1 First notions of electromagnetism and the ether 22 1.2 Einstein’s youthful “scientific work” on the ether and magnetic field 23 1.3. Einstein designs experiments to confirm the Earth’s motion through the ether 26 1.4. Einstein’s first doubts about the existence of the ether and the electrodynamics of his time 27 1.5 Conceptual premises for doubts concerning the ether 28 Chapter-2: Einstein denies the existence of the ether (1905-1916) 38 2.1. Works published before the Special Relativity Theory 38 2.2 The ether becomes superfluous 40 2.6 Beginnings of the General Theory of Relativity 44 2.7 Einstein finds a new argument against the ether 46 2.8 Other works in which Einstein rejects the ether 49 2.9 Origin of the dispute between Einstein and Lenard 51 2.10 Minkowski’s four-dimensional world 54 2.11 Einstein on the path to the new ether 55 2.12 Summary 72 Chapter-3: Einstein introduces his new concept of the ether (1916-1924) 74 3.1 Correspondence with Lorentz, polemic with Lenard 74 3.2 The new ether concept in the “Morgan Manuscript” 88 3.3 The anti-Einstein campaign over the ether 90 3.4 Preparations for an extensive presentation of the new ether concept 95 3.5 The Einstein–Lenard debate in Bad Nauheim 96 3.6 Lenard’s reaction to Einstein’s response 99 3.7 Weyl replies to Lenard’s objections 99 3.8 Einstein’s inaugural lecture in Leiden 102 3.9 Eddington’s relativistic ether 109 3.10 Weyl’s improved version of the relativistic ether 111 3.11 Kaluza’s pentadimensional world 111 3.12 Einstein’s second major work on the new ether 112 3.13 Evolution of Einstein’s epistemological views 117 Chapter-4: Development of Einstein’s ether concept (1925-1955) 126 4.1 Einstein’s first attempt to solve the unification problem 127 4.2 The Kaluza-Klein pentadimensional continuum 128 4.3 Space-time continuum with teleparallelism 128 4.4 Four-dimensional space-time with pentavectors 140 4.5 Anti-Einstein campaign. Einstein leaves Europe 143 4.6 Elementary particles as “portions” of space 148 4.7 History of ether continued in relativity theory 151 4.8 Material nature of the space-time continuum 154 4.9 New attempt to improve Kaluza’s theory 155 4.10 Einstein finally rejects Kaluza’s theory 155 4.11 The theory of bivector fields 156 4.12 A new attempt to generalise General Relativity 157 4.13 Asymmetric field—return to the 1925 idea 158 4.14 Changes in Einstein’s views on physical space 159 4.15 Did Einstein stop using the term “ether” after 1938? 160 4.16 New editions of Einstein’s works on the new ether 163 4.17 Did the idea of a relativistic ether survive? 164 Chapter-5: Physical meaning of Einstein’s relativistic ether 168 5.1 Einstein stresses the model-like nature of physical cognition 168 5.2 Einstein’s space-time models and contemporary physics 169 5.3. Three models of Einstein’s relativistic ether 177 5.4. Essential attributes of Einstein’s ether 179 5.5 “Physical space,” “ether,” “field”: are they synonymous? 194 5.6 Should the expressions “new ether” and “relativistic ether” be used today? 196 Appendix: Original Quotations 200 a: Introduction 200 b: Chapter 1 201 c: Chapter 2 203 d: Chapter 3 209 e: Chapter 4 225 f: Chapter 5 232 Bibliography 238 Index of Proper Names 250