Word: etherealizing
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...famed Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887, in which perpendicular beams of light were raced against each other, seemed to show that a light-carrying ether pervading all space did not exist. Fitzgerald, Larmor and Lorentz shored up the collapsing ether-concept by showing-theoretically-that a moving body must contract slightly in the direction of motion, that a moving clock would therefore slow down. Though imperceptible except at speeds approaching light's velocity (186,000 mi. per sec.), these changes would affect a Michelson-Morley apparatus just enough to cancel any possible observation of the ether-drift-by altering...
...Einstein's Relativity (1905-15) the ether was discarded as an unnecessary hypothesis. The Fitzgerald-Larmor-Lorentz effects were incorporated into Relativity theory, not as a consequence of absolute motion through a stagnant ether but as an effect of relative motion. If two observers are moving relative to each other, each one would find, checking by his own timepiece, that the other's clock was running slow...
...Physics does not contain a single mathematical equation or formula, but it is studded with a number of helpful diagrams. Co-author Infeld writes with lucid, straightforward simplicity, not devoid of patches of whimsey-as, for example, having shown how modern physics banished the concept of a jelly-like ether which carries light waves, he thereafter refers to the ether, when necessary, as if it were a swearword: "e-r." The authors admit that the avoidance of mathematical languages involves a certain loss of precision. But the loss is held to a minimum because they try not to paraphrase mathematical...
Electromagnetic waves were supposed to be transported through space in a jelly-like medium called the ether. But the difficulty of constructing a coherent mathematical picture of the ether proved insuperable. Furthermore, the famed Michelson-Morley experiment showed fairly conclusively that the ether did not exist...
...letters of criticism that showered on National Broadcasting Co. was one from FCC asking for a transcript of the program. Last week NBC President Lenox R. Lohr got another letter from FCC, signed by Chairman Frank McNinch. Taking time out from such radio supervising jobs as dividing up the ether, allotting slices of it to broadcasting stations and licensing operators, Mr. McNinch sounded off on Mae West...