> Another interpretation is that the apparatus ... is made from ether

Or maybe an invisible pink unicorn is sneaking into the lab at night and tweaking things.

QM posits that fields which constitute matter and fields which constitute EM are both manifestations of an underlying phenomenon — that’s the whole idea behind unification. (And we’ve already successfully unified such fields.) My comment is just applying that theory to interpreting the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Please don’t reply with such trite anti-scientific comments, which conflate actual scientific claims with nonsense.

If you have an actual objection, then you should present it. But argument by mockery because you fail to understand modern physics lowers the quality of the discussion.

▲

lisper 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> My comment is just applying that theory to interpreting the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Really? Where in the Standard Model do I find the luminiferous aether that you suggest the apparatus is made of?

▲

zmgsabst 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Field theories are aether theories; as is GR. (Wilczek says as much.) You’re fixated on a particular model of aether, rather than addressing the broader concept. But that’s as illogical as me insisting atoms aren’t real because the Bohr model of electron shells was wrong.

The current aether for light is called “EM field”; matter is made of other fields demonstrated to unify at high energies by the LHC and similar experiments, within the standard model. But you knew all that.

You’re just pretending ignorance to avoid addressing my central thesis: fields are aethers.

	▲	lisper 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> You’re fixated on a particular model of aether Well, yes, of course. This is a discussion of Michelson-Morley interferometers. In that context the word "aether" has a very specific and well-established meaning, and it is not at all the same as a quantum field. > fields are aethers You are free to employ the Humpty Dumpty theory of language and redefine the word "aether" if you like. But in the context of Michelson-Morley interferometers, no, quantum fields are not "aethers". The whole notion of making the word "aether" plural in that context is non-sensical. In the context of Michelson-Morley interferometers there is only one aether: the luminiferous aether, a hypothetical physical substance that exists in three-dimensional space. Quantum fields are not even remotely like that. They are not physical. They do not exist in 3-D space. They cannot be directly measured. Physical objects are emergent properties of fields, but they are not "made of" fields. The constituents of a piece of lab equipment are particles, not fields.