________________
74
COSMOLOGY : OLD AND NEW
the members of this imponderable family. Nowadays, the ether is the only member of this family which has survived,...... “*174
"Material media are penetrated by aether, their molecules being surrounded by it much as the leaves of a tree are surrounded by the air." (For more details about aet her read pages 18-22 ante.)
These quotations establish the nature of aether as a non-atomic continuous medium.
We have already shown that the modern science has postulated the existence of gravitation in order to account for the stability of the macroscopic world and the existence of a similar electromagnetic forces in the case of the microscopic world like that of the atoms and the molecules. Those who are in touch with the recent developments in Physics know that the great physicist Prof. Einstein has already given out his Unified Field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism as referred to on page 30 ante (footnote 81). Several theories are in the field at present and one which will be found convincing in all respects will be accepted. Then we will be left with one adhurma dravya, the principle of stability for the macroscopic as well as for the microscopic world.
In the meantime let us see what is the present view of science on this point. As mentioned on pages 30-31 ante the physicists have at every step felt that necessity of assuming a medium for the operation of gravitation but they never formulated it in clear words. However in the case of electromagnetic forces, which are a counterpart of gravitation, a medium was recognized by the great Prince of experimenters Sir Michael Faraday and the same conception is still in force. Prof. Max Born states that "at the beginning of the 19th century most physicists, particularly on the continent, asserted that the electric force acts through the empty space between two charges (action at a distance'). Faraday. however, developed the idea that the electric field is due to something which happens in the space between the charges ("action through a medium')."
With regard to the continuity of space, the space of the mathematician of today is undoubtedly an unbroken continuum; even the Dictionary meaning of 'space' conveys the same idea.
174. Ibid. p. 68. 175. Restless Universe, p. 140.
