Revisiting the Ether Concept

For centuries, the concept of an all-pervading cosmic ether captivated scientists and philosophers alike. Scientists believed that this mysterious substance filled the vacuum of space, serving as a medium for light propagation and potentially explaining various cosmic phenomena. However, with Einstein’s theory of relativity rising in the early 20th century, the ether theory seemed to fade into scientific obscurity.

But what if the ether was discarded prematurely? Dr. James DeMeo, a contemporary researcher, argues that there is compelling evidence for the existence of a dynamic, substantive ether – one that could revolutionize our understanding of space, time, and the fundamental forces of nature.

In his paper “A Dynamic and Substantive Cosmological Ether,” published in the Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance in Spring 2004, DeMeo presents a comprehensive analysis of ether theory and its implications for modern physics. This work draws on the groundbreaking experiments of physicist Dayton Miller and the controversial orgone energy research of Wilhelm Reich, offering a fresh perspective on a long-dismissed concept.

In this article, we’ll explore DeMeo’s analysis, examining how these findings challenge conventional physics and offer potential insights into consciousness-matter interactions, subtle energy phenomena, and the nature of reality itself.

Dayton Miller’s Ether-Drift Experiments: A Second Look

Many cite the famous Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 as conclusively disproving the existence of the ether. However, Dr. James DeMeo contends that the design of this experiment was flawed, leading to misinterpretations of its results for more than a century.

In addition, never before has it ever been considered scientific to base a complete “debunking” of a scientific theory on a single experiment (and a poorly designed one, at that); yet, that is precisely what happened with the Michelson-Morley experiment and the ether theory.

DeMeo points out that the results published for the Michelson-Morley experiment reflected only six hours of data collection, over the course of just four days and only 36 turns of their interferometer. This limited dataset is hardly sufficient to draw such far-reaching conclusions about the nature of space itself. Furthermore, despite showing a small result for an ether drift, the Michelson-Morley experiment dismissed it.

The Michelson-Morley experiment is often used to “debunk” the ether theory, but DeMeo argues that the experiment was poorly designed from the outset. It was not conducted at altitude, which may be one of the reasons why it did not originally detect a significant ether-drift.

Furthermore, in the absence of the ether theory in modern science, scientists have proposed other types of fields (e.g., quantum field, Higgs field, etc.) to essentially replace the ether.

Miller’s Monumental Effort

In contrast, physicist Dayton Miller conducted several ether-drift experiments from 1902 to 1928, using a vastly improved experimental design. As detailed in his comprehensive report published in Rev. Modern Physics, July 1933, Miller built a Michelson-type light-beam interferometer that was significantly more sensitive than the original.

Key aspects of Miller’s experiments include:

• Miller’s ether-drift experiments featured 333 times more turns of the interferometer than the original Michelson-Morley experiment did.
• The largest and most sensitive interferometer ever built, constructed of iron and floated in a tank of mercury for easy and smooth rotation.
• Experiments conducted at various altitudes, including high-altitude tests on Mt. Wilson at 6000 feet elevation.
• Use of light materials like canvas, glass, and light paper for shielding, discarding all wood, stone, and metal shielding used in the original Michelson-Morley experiment.

Miller’s interferometer possessed nearly three times the light-path sensitivity as the original Michelson-Morley interferometer. This increased precision allowed him to detect subtle ether-drift effects that had previously gone unnoticed.

The Evolution of Miller’s Research

Miller’s ether-drift experiments showed positive results throughout his career. Miller began his experiments with Edward Morley at Case School in Cleveland in 1902, and carried out his final experiments on Mt. Wilson in 1926 – 1928. Between 1922 and 1924, Miller also undertook rigorous control experiments at the Case School Physics Department.

Miller’s experiments on Mt. Wilson did in fact show a significant ether-drift in multiple experiments. The original Michelson-Morley experiment failed to account for the crucial factor of the ether’s easy detection at altitude.

Altitude: The Key to Detection

One of Miller’s most significant insights was the importance of altitude in detecting ether-drift. He became convinced of an Earth-entrainment effect that necessitated using the large interferometer at high altitudes, and only within structures where the walls were covered with only light material and were open to the air.

Miller’s experiments on Mt. Wilson yielded the most positive results, indicating that altitude is the optimal location for ether detection. This finding may explain why the original Michelson-Morley experiment, which was not conducted at altitude, failed to detect a significant ether-drift.

Confirmation from Other Researchers

Several studies from other researchers confirmed Miller’s Mt. Wilson results:

• Michelson-Pease-Pearson conducted several experiments in the 1920s. They did not conduct their first two tests at altitude, and they did not yield positive results. However, they conducted their third test at altitude, which indeed yielded a positive result. Their results were very similar to Miller’s results, but they dismissed the result because they mistakenly expected a bigger result based on their interpretation of Miller’s hypothesis of a substantive and Earth-entrainable ether.
• Kennedy-Thorndike also produced similar results to Miller’s results but they dismissed the results as “null” because they did not agree with Miller’s hypothesis of a substantive and Earth-entrainable ether.
• In both cases, positive ether-drift results were discounted due to human subjectivity, which mistakenly passed for “science.”

Einstein’s Relativity and the Rejection of the Ether

As Miller continued his meticulous experiments, a paradigm shift was occurring in the physics community. Einstein’s relativity theory required space to have no ether, and the scientific community largely went with relativity, mistakenly dismissing the ether. The previous ether-drift experiments that showed a significant ether drift were ignored as though they never existed.

Scientific discussion of these ether-drift experiments largely ended after the deaths of Michelson in 1931 and Miller in 1941. The scientific community mistakenly propped the original Michelson-Morley experiment up as “proof” of the non-existence of the ether, but the Michelson-Morley experiment was poorly designed and the subsequent experiments by Miller and others were either ignored or dismissed due to scientific indoctrination.

The Shankland Analysis: A Flawed Debunking

Shankland and his team conducted a poor analysis of Miller’s work in the 1950s, dismissing Miller’s findings. However, James DeMeo analyzed the Shankland analysis and concluded that Shankland’s “debunking” of the Miller results was illegitimate, based on biased data selection and negative assumptions that Miller had already refuted years before he died and years before the so-called analysis was conducted.

DeMeo’s careful examination of the Shankland analysis reveals several flaws:

• Cherry-picking of data to support predetermined conclusions.
• Failure to properly account for Miller’s careful controls and methodologies.
• Misrepresentation of the statistical significance of Miller’s results.

Unfortunately, for decades, people have cited this flawed analysis as evidence against Miller’s work, further suppressing serious consideration of ether theory in mainstream physics.

If anything, this should demonstrate for science historians and philosophers that science is often not at all scientific, even though it often loves to throw the “pseudoscience” accusation at others. Sometimes, the worst “pseudoscientists” are the establishment scientists themselves. 

Modern Confirmations of Ether-Drift

Despite the suppression of ether theory in mainstream physics, independent researchers have continued to investigate and confirm Miller’s findings. One notable example is the work of Yuri Galaev of the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics in Ukraine.

Galaev made independent measurements of ether-drift using radiofrequency and optical wave bands. His results confirmed Miller’s findings “down to the details.” Importantly, Galaev’s results allowed computation of the increase of ether-drift with altitude above Earth’s surface, calculated to be 8.6 meters a second per meter of altitude.

Galaev confirmed that ether-drift was most detectable at altitude, further supporting the idea that the Michelson-Morley experiment has no basis for claiming to debunk the ether hypothesis, because the Michelson-Morley experiment was not conducted at altitude.

Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone: A New Perspective on Cosmic Energy

Psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich approached the concept of a cosmic energy from a slightly different angle, but surprisingly came to many of the same conclusions that Miller did. Reich’s orgone research, therefore, is highly relevant to the ether-drift research of Miller, Galaev, and others.

Properties of Orgone Energy

Reich produced a series of experimental reports from 1934 to 1957 documenting a form of energy he called orgone. He believed that orgone energy charged the tissues of living organisms and played a fundamental role in life processes. Reich’s research indicated that orgone energy existed in a dynamic form within the atmospheric ocean, which he referred to as the “orgone energy continuum.” Reich postulated that orgone also existed in cosmic space.

The properties of Reich’s orgone were remarkably similar to Miller’s ether:

• Both filled all of space.
• Both were in constant motion.
• Both flowed in streaming motions but were capable of concentrating in one place and diminishing in another.
• Both could penetrate matter and weakly interact with it.
• Both could be reflected by metal.
• Both moved faster and were more active at higher altitudes.

Interestingly, Reich discovered that certain types of metals could deflect the orgone, while Miller also discovered that certain types of metals could deflect the ether. Both Reich and Miller made these discoveries independently.

This is important because the original Michelson-Morley experiment used some of the materials that both Miller and Reich discovered could deflect ether/orgone. Using such materials would have naturally given Michelson and Morley very small ether-drift results because their materials were effectively pushing the ether away from their interferometer!

Yet, to this day, the Michelson-Morley experiment is used as defacto “proof” of the non-existence of the ether.

Numerous studies in the online Bibliography on Orgonomy confirm and replicate nearly all of Reich’s claims, further supporting the similarities between orgone and ether.

Reich’s Cosmic Observations

Reich’s research led him to make several observations about the behavior of orgone energy on a cosmic scale:

• The Earth’s orgone energy envelope rotated from West to East faster than Earth’s rotation.
• Existence of a discrete energy stream moving SW to NE within the atmosphere.
• A streaming motion along the Milky Way Galaxy (the Galactic stream).
• Secondary streams flowing parallel to the plane of the Solar System Ecliptic and to the Earth’s equator (the Equatorial Stream).

Reich argued that these cosmic energy streams would attract each other and superimpose in a spiral form, potentially condensing to create new matter out of the cosmic energy substrate. He called these spiral wave forms “Kreiselwelle” (spinning waves) and believed they underlay various biological, atmospheric, and cosmic motions.

Cosmic Superimposition: A Theory of Universal Motion

Reich’s theory of Cosmic Superimposition postulated that the rotation of planets around their axis and the revolution of planets around their suns were all products of giant superimposing streams of cosmic energy. This concept of a dynamic, spiraling cosmic energy bears a remarkable similarity to the fluid-like ether described by Miller and analyzed by DeMeo.

Reich’s findings are highly compatible with the concept of a dynamic ether, which would fill the role of a cosmic prime mover. In Reich’s universe, streams of flowing orgone energy moved the planets along their trajectories in space, providing a mechanism for celestial mechanics that differs significantly from the purely gravitational model of mainstream physics.

The Dynamic Ether as a Cosmic Prime Mover

DeMeo’s analysis of Miller and Reich’s work points to a conception of the ether that is far more dynamic and substantive than earlier static models. This dynamic ether could potentially serve as a cosmic prime mover, explaining various phenomena that challenge current physical theories.

From Static to Dynamic

The earliest scientific theories of the ether imagined it to be stationary and static. Newton, for instance, imagined the ether to be void of any properties or motion. According to DeMeo, Newton could not envision the ether as a dynamic prime mover because to him only God could be the prime mover.

This static conception of ether persisted into the late 19th century. One of the reasons why the Michelson-Morley experiment “failed” to detect an ether-drift was because they designed their study to detect only a static, non-substantive ether instead of a dynamic substantive ether.

In contrast, Reich attributed to orgone/ether dynamic properties of spiraling motion. His orgone/ether was not stagnant nor void of properties. Remarkably, as DeMeo points out, Miller’s observations from his 1928 experiments and Reich’s observations about the relative motion of the Earth and orgone/ether were virtually identical, yet they came to these conclusions independently of one another. Both Miller and Reich mapped the spiraling movement of the orgone/ether and came to many of the same conclusions independently.

Implications for Gravity and Spacetime

The concept of the cosmological ether as a fluidic substantive medium (with very slight mass) that can entrain or slow down as it moves closer to the Earth’s surface is consistent with Galaev’s and Miller’s experiments. 

It appears as though it is the fluidic substantive ether that “curves” in the presence of mass to produce gravity. Einstein never really explained what spacetime is, nor how it supposedly “curves” in the presence of mass. On the other hand, the fluidic substantive ether theory does explain what spacetime actually is, as well as how it “curves” in the presence of mass.

Harold Aspden’s research supports this view by confirming that spacetime is essentially the fluidic substantive ether.

Reassessing Modern Physics in Light of Ether Theory

The concept of a dynamic, substantive ether challenges a number of fundamental assumptions of modern physics:

1. The nature of space: Rather than empty vacuum or abstract spacetime, space would be filled with a tangible, albeit incredibly subtle, super-fluidic, energetic medium.
2. The speed of light: If light propagates through an ether, its speed may not be constant in all reference frames, contradicting a key principle of special relativity.
3. Gravitational effects: The curvature of spacetime described by general relativity might be reinterpreted as interactions between mass and the ether medium.
4. Quantum phenomena: The ether could potentially provide a physical basis for quantum fields and explain wave-particle duality.

While these ideas remain highly controversial, they suggest that a reexamination of ether theories could lead to new insights and potentially resolve some of the outstanding problems in physics, such as the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Consciousness-Matter Interactions

If consciousness interacts with or emerges from the ether medium, it could explain reported phenomena like psychokinesis or distant healing effects. The ether might serve as a bridge between mind and matter, facilitating non-local interactions.

Subtle Energy in Living Systems

Many alternative healing practices posit the existence of subtle energy fields in and around living organisms. The concept of a biologically interactive ether aligns with these ideas and could provide a scientific framework for investigating practices like acupuncture, energy healing, and biofield therapies.

Anomalous Physical Phenomena

A dynamic ether could potentially explain various anomalous phenomena reported in parapsychology and frontier science, such as:

• Unexplained heating effects (similar to those observed in Reich’s orgone accumulators).
• Anomalous gravitational or inertial effects.
• Purported “free energy” devices that seem to violate conservation laws.

While these topics remain highly controversial, the ether concept provides a theoretical framework for investigating them scientifically.

A Call for Open-Minded Inquiry

The work of Dayton Miller, Wilhelm Reich, and James DeMeo challenges us to reconsider the hasty dismissal of ether theories in the early 20th century. While their findings remain contentious, they raise important questions about the nature of space, energy, and the foundations of physics.

It is not genuinely scientific to support a “debunking” of the ether theory on a single, poorly designed scientific experiment like Michelson-Morley. As we grapple with outstanding problems in modern physics and explore the frontiers of consciousness research, it may be valuable to reexamine these “heretical” ideas with fresh eyes. A truly open-minded scientific approach demands that we investigate anomalous results and alternative theories, even when they challenge our existing paradigms.

The concept of a dynamic, substantive ether offers a rich territory for exploration, potentially bridging classical and modern physics, and opening new avenues for understanding the nature of reality. Even though we still need to rigorously test and develop these ideas, they serve as a reminder that challenging our most fundamental assumptions about the universe often leads to the greatest scientific revolutions.