Cosmology Old and New

Author(s): G R Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 53

SŪTRA I (Dharma)
21 This result produced a great commotion in the scientific world for Michelson-Morley Experiment led us to conclude that either there was no material aether or that it moves wi earth or that it is at rest in space, while Miller's work indicated aether drag and proved aether to be not non-existent.
More delicate experiments were taken up in Germany year 1925 by Tomaschek to detect the motion reported by Miller. The work of Tomaschek was again criticised by Chose in America and he carried out his experiments, published in the Physical Review, August 1926, but no such motion could be detected. The Michelson experiment has been again repeated in recent years in a free balloon at heights of nearly 1/2 and 3 miles but the authors report that they are unable to confirm or refute the Miller's report. That Miller's results are for some reason inaccurate appears to have been established by the research of Kennedy in U.S.A. published in November 1926. The famous 'Chicago rotation experiment designed to rest the effect of the earth's rotation on the velocity of light confirmed the view that aether was stagnant not moving.
The physicists have sometimes become very much confused over the aether controversy. In the words of N.M. Baligh, A.R.C.Sc., A.I.C.: “If an aether does exist it would be a fourdimensional concept and its absolute nature would be impossible of comprehension as the function which it serves."
Let us review the whole situation. Why were the scientists led to such absurd conclusions that aet her was thinner than the thinnest gas and at the same time more rigid than steel; absolutely weightless and at the same time heavier than The answer is : because they then regarded aether as a sort of matter, i.e., they identified dharma dravya with pudgala dravya; and the discrepancies have now disappeared, when they have come to regard it as a non-material amurtika medium. Remember the latest utterance of A.S. Eddington, M.A., LL.D., D.Sc. F.R.S. (Plumian Professor of Astronomy in the Unive sity of Cambridge); "Nowadays it is agreed that aether is not a kind of matter."
Why was the Michelson-Morley experiment performed and repeatedly performed with such great refinements? (To find out whether the ocean of aether was moving or stagnant. And what is the latest pronouncement on the subject?) D.C. Miller in his paper 'Ether-drift experiment and determination of the absolute