In one of the letters written to the Infeld group in Warsaw Einstein wrote:
"A new manner of thinking is essential if humankind is to survive."

  

AETHER AND DOGMATIC THINKING

In Newton's Model Physics found a rigorous representation of Gravity, 
which ruled unchallenged for centuries and even currently continues 
to be the most pertinent approximation for low speeds and weak Field 
areas. 

Optics, on the contrary, lacked a consistent theory and accumulated
without cease new problems and difficulties. As we said above, 
physicists abandonned the corpuscular theory of light and replaced it 
with wave theory, without , unfortunately, renouncing the mechanistic
view of Universe. And following the habit of mechanistic thinking, 
they glued these hardly compatible concepts with a crutch of all 
crutches, with a hypothetical corpuscular "substance" called Aether. 
It has been conceived by analogy with well known wave phenomena such 
as sound whose propagation is supported by discrete media, by 
oscillating particles of corpuscular fluids - gases or liquids.
 
Light manifesting however, essentially different behaviour than sound,
like propagating through vacuum, the theory started with severe 
problems whose apparent solutions created other, still more complex 
ones, reaching the apogee after the discovery of the electro-magnetic 
field by Maxwell. The complexity of mathematics trying obstinately to 
save the purely abstract mechanistic crutch, surpassed that of most 
known theories. Aether was probably the largest waste of effort and 
ingenuity in the history of Science which shows how dangerous it is 
to found scientific theories in aprioristic metaphysical beliefs such 
as the mechanistic determinism.

This seems to be a crucial lesson for us living in an epoch ruled 
increasingly by irrational beliefs, torn by religious, chauvinistic
wars and genocides, where dogmatism is gaining all social domains
including established science and education, where exorcists 
graduating from the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University of 
Vatican, together with other Creationists and Intelligent Designers
infiltrate "scientific education" and start talking about resurrecting 
geocentric cosmology founded in sacrosanct verbatim interpretation of 
Genesis. Amidst this deluge of aggressive irrationality, the souvenir 
of Aether mishaps may help to save at least the rationality of 
Science.

As the Aether theory has been irremediably scrapped, we shall briefly 
mention some of its principal problems without entering into details 
of involved complex mathematics.

Light propagates through vacuum, thus what appears as vacuum, the whole
cosmic space must be full of Aether from apparent vacuum to "material
substances" such as glass or air, through which light propagates as
well. Mechanistic view suggests that Aether should present resistance
to movements of stellar bodies. but no such effect has been observed
and they keep on moving undisturbed through interstellar space. So,
Aether had to be retackled so that it interacts with light but not
with "matter". Mathematic difficulties apart, how could such a 
"substance" be reconciled with the mechanistic view, is more than we
can say. Apparently, the Olympus of a priori allows to stretch any
point to make it fit any preconceived commonplace. Anyway, all these
efforts were in vain: going through glas or water light changes speed,
so Aether has to interact with "matter". New mathematical crutches
reached hardly ever equaled complexity having to take care of an 
additional difficulty, namely polarisation requiring transverse light 
waves.  Those require in turn the propagating medium to behave as a 
solid. So one had to deal with a "substance" which behaves like a 
solid with respect to light, like no-interaction vacuum with respect 
to "matter" of stellar bodies, while interacting with "matter" which 
it permeates like glass or water in a way to modify the speed of light 
waves in function of their length. Mathematical problems apart, the
pile of contradictions involved by such "substance" should have 
indicated its aberration, but what would one not do to save an
irrational belief; so mathematical arobacies described a "substance" 
solid-like at ultramicroscopic sizes, vacuum-like at macroscopic 
sizes, sometimes interacting with "matter" and sometimes not.

One would expect that Maxwell's definition of light being a particular
case of electro-magnetic FIELD propagating at the speed C, would sound
the knell of Aether phantasm. Especially, considering that Galilean 
Relativity banning absolute speed and privileged Referentials, 
required this C to be the same in all IR's. But the mechanistic dogma 
was too strong and rather than call it in question, one sacrificed on 
its altar the very base of contemporary Physics, the Galilean 
Relativity. One declared that Aether is a universal ABSOLUTE, 
absolutely immobile Referential, in which light moves at C.
Strangely enough nobody noticed, or at least nobody mentioned that 
Mechanics being at the time defined and covariant exclusively in IR's,
it was illegal to apply mechanistic principles to the absolute Aether,
nor that all other IR's which became absolute by virtue of their 
relations to Aether, thus making Physics universally unfounded and 
undefined. 

Be it as it may, light was supposed to move in other Referentials,
for instance at Earth, at speed Ce = C + Ve, where: 
Ce is speed of light with respect to Earth,
Ve is speed of Earth with respect to Aether. 
This assumption called for empiric verification: Ce measured as 
different from C would 1.confirm the existence of Aether, 2.determine
the ABSOLUTE spead of Earth with respect to ABSOLUTELY immobile Aether.
However, the Michelson-Morley experiment proved that light moved with
respect to Earth at Maxwell's speed C, thus refuting the hypothesis of 
universal, absolute and absolutely immobile Aether.

With unbelievable obstination some physicists made last superhuman 
efforts to save mechanistic dogma by restructuring Aether so that it
would be "dragged" by stellar bodies thus moving in their vicinity
at their speed. However, this hypothesis would involve C depending 
of the speed of light source which was experimentally refuted and  
Aether finally died taking with it into the grave the dogmatic, 
metaphysical mechanistic "determinism".

This critique of the Aether Model may look rather severe, but it may
by no means be interpreted as looking down on Planck, Maxwell, Lorentz 
and other great physicists who argued for it with ingenuity surpassing 
most other scientific endeavors. It is meant to emphasize the dangers
of founding dogmatically Models of Phenomena in aprioristic 
metaphysical beliefs, dangers actually more serious for Global than
for Physical Models. For physical theories such dangers are, after all, 
of abstract and intellectual nature. For Global Phenomena encompassing 
demography, ecology, religious and ethnic fundamentalism, globalised 
economy, politics and warfare, they are factual, casting doubt upon 
the very survival of the mankind.