----- Original Message ---- From: Stephen A. Lawrence http://www.energyscience.org.uk/
> It appears to be rather large [Aspden effect]. He appears to "believe in" an > aether. ... as well he should- but his effect is not large. > Jed (or anyone), do you know of anyplace on his site where he explains how he > resolves his aether theory with the results of the Michelson-Morley and > Sagnac experiments? I did not see such a discussion in a quick perusal. What is there to resolve? All those experiments which you mention can possibly prove (if they really prove anything at all) is that aether in our local 3-space is not the medium of travel for light. They were so poorly done that they may not have even proved that, but if they do - then so what? It is quite logical that the aether is primarily a higher dimensional field or medium anyway, and that light does not use it - but instead probably does require the local 3-space gravitational field - and ironically may use gravity in somewhat the same way that naysayers suggested aether could have been used ... if it were measureable in our 3-space (i.e. from the perspective of photons, gravity provides a kind of virtual 'traction'). IOW it appears to me that the aether-naysayers were both scientists who did not try to extend their limited findings, but with a vocal contingent of a few who were (historically) activist-atheists who were offended by the inherent mystery of an aether, or by the theological implications of higher dimensions; and these few had a personal agenda going beyond science. Why else would they be so vocal about such a poorly constructed experiment? IOW a few of the more active in this argument were against any spatial dimension or medium which could transfer information from afar - and they pretty much got away for decades with a personal agenda by constructing and disproving a purely 'straw man argument'. If light photons use the gravity field as a "propulsion" medium, for instance, and that may be inherent in some of the theories of electrogravity, then the speed of light would always be relative to the local gravity field, regardless of how fast the local gravitational field is moving through a static aether in the next larger frame (which itself would be a higher dimension). BTW - this might also imply that if light from other galaxies enters areas of zero local gravity, it may exceed c in those spaces or even be mirrored back. It might also imply that photons, in fact maybe all bosons do not feel an aether- but fermions could feel it- at least feel the dimensional interface of it (which is where the thixotropy, and the Aspden effect, would come in). The near-null results of various poorly performed, so-called aether-non-detection experiments like Michelson-Morley can be explained away in no time by the fact that those devices were stationary in the Earth's local gravity field which itself is almost certainly not stationary in an aether (which itself is not required for photons to propagate). Jones
