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78
COSMOLOGY OLD AND NEW
"To all appearances the wave-motion seems to be stationary in position. The wave-form shrinks to a straight line by proportional diminution of all its ordinates. It then expands proportionally all the ordinates being now reversed in sign, again shrinks and so forth."
In the Jaina work Ālāpa-paddhati the phenomenon is compared to the ripples growing and decaying on the surface of a sea thus making the analogy with a stationary wave-motion still more striking.
Thus we shall see that Jainism regards the media of motion and rest and the Space-Time as unmoving with these natural pulsations existing in them. Can we not think that these pulsations are generated by the movement of various material bodies and particles in space? The attempts of scientists to detect aether were based on this conception. We have referred to the famous Michelson-Morely experiment on page 20 ante. The argument was this:
"Just as the aeroplane passengers observe a strong head-wind, so there must be an ether-wind blowing past the earth....... The light-waves on the earth must be blown about by the etherwind. Accordingly as they travel with or against the direction of the etherwind or at right-angles to it, their velocity will be different. The effect is only a very minute one......181
As we have seen (in pages 20-21 ante) sometimes negative and sometimes positive result has been obtained, the latter, however, has not been unequivocally confirmed. The last conclusion is therefore that the earth is moving through a fixed ether. If, however, a positive result is obtained, as prophesied by the great India mathematician late Sir S.M. Sulaiman and as some more precise experiments published in the American Physical Review (Feb. 15, 1935) testify, it would be a brilliant confirmation of the sadguni hanivrddhi theory of the Jainas.
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181. Restless Universe by Max Born, p. 75.
