International Jain Conference 1985 3rd Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 101

The first problem before the scientists was that if light waves were real waves they must be waves something. They were plainly not waves in matter, it was necessary, thefore, to invent something else, which was not matter, for them to be waves in. This something they called the Aether and imagined it as an utterly thin and elastic fiuid that flowed undisturbed between the particles of the material universe and filled all empty space of every kind.
What was this Aether like ? Material media are penetrated by aether, their molecules being surrounded by it such as the leaves of tree are surrounded by air. But difficulties and contradictions appeared at once. For, it was proved to be : (1) thinner than the thinnest gas; (2) more rigid than steel; (3) absolutely the same everywhere; (4) absolutely weightless; and (5) in the neighbourhood of any electron, immensely heavier than lead. It is difficult to imagine the planets as moving with their enormous velocities through aether without any loss of energy. The motions of the planets are perfectly regular and show no signs of any loss of this kind. In the words of Denton, the Newtonian aether is rigid, yet allows all matter to move about it without friction or resistance; it is elastic but cannot be distorted. It moves but its motion cannot be detected; it exerts force on matter but matter exerts no force on it: it has no mass nor has it any parts which can be identified; it is said to be at rest relatively to the fixed stars, yet the stars are known to be in motion relatively to one another.
A great many phenomena, culminating in the Michelson experiment and the theory of relativity, showed that the aether must be something very different from ordinary terretrial substances.
Eddington writes about aether in his famous book, "The Nature of Physical world” that it docs not mean from the above that the aether is abolished. We need an aether........ In the last century, it was widely believed that the aether was a kind of matter. It would be difficult to say when this view died out. Nowadays, it is agreed that aether is not a kind of matter. Being non-material, its properties are quite unique.
Thus, it seems that science and Jain physics agree absolutely in so far as they call Dharma non-material, non-atomic, non-discrete, continuous, co-extensive with space, indivisible and as a necessary medium for motion and one which does not move.
(5) Medium of Rest or Adharma : Adharma is auxiallary cause of rest to soul and matter. It is the principle which guarantees the permanance of the world structure. It assists the staying of soul and matter which are stationary just as the shade of a tree helps the staying of travellers. But Adharma does not stay those which are moving. It also pervades the entire universe and has all other characteristics like Dharma. To summarise, it is a non-living, formless, inactive, continuous medium without which equilibrium in the universe would be impossible and the souls and the atoms would have become scattered in infinite space. It is the bind
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