Was the ether merely a hypothetical entity we create to help us?

Or was it really out there

Met this question before - with Copernicus

Realism vs. Anti-realism

It enables predictions that are shown to be true - Hertz’s waves It leaves us with contradictions

It’s preposterousIt’s based on experimental results - Young

Oliver Lodge

One person who believed it was really out there was Oliver Lodge

“[Some] may be inclined to Imagine [the ether] is still a hypothetical medium whose existence is a matterof opinion. Such is not the case.” 1892

American physicist Henry Rowland

“The luminiferous ether is, today, a muchmore important factor in physics thanthe air we breathe.” 1889

Many felt that the discoveries of science were getting us closer and closer to final truth of nature

When that truth is unpleasant, we have to face it

Darwin

Scientific Materialism

“We have to take things as they really are, not as we imagine them to be.”

We have to ban every kind of supernaturalism and idealism from the explanation of natural events

Age of Realism

Realpolitik Literature Art

Marx’s Das KapitalFeuerbach

Technological advance confirmed that the scientists were mastering nature

Electric motor – creating mechanical motion from electricity

Electric generator – creating electricity from mechanical motion

Telegraph

Steam locomotives - railroads

Economic advance

Construction – bridges, tunnels, subways,

Urban renewal

Modernization was happening and at a rapid pace

“The most salient characteristic of life in the latter portion of the nineteenth century is its SPEED.”

W. R. Greg, 1875

The successes in science in the 19th century led to confidence in some scientific circles

1887 Thomas Mendenhall, Pres. American Association of Science

1894 Albert Michelson of the Michelson/Morley experiment

It is now safer to say what is possible and what impossible. Just as the next 500years would not add to the stock of geographical knowledge comparable towhat has been learned since the 14th century, so the next 100 years is notlikely to duplicate the 19th century where great, original, and far-reachingdiscoveries in electricity is concerned.

It is likely that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmlyestablished and now it is a matter of applying them. An eminent physicisthas said that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.