If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.
Nikola Tesla
“Frequency and vibration” is another way of saying “waves”, but wave is not what something is, it is what something does. So the question becomes: waves of what? Or, if you prefer: what is waving? The environment of “empty space” is not empty. Pressure patterns (waves) require a medium in which to propagate.
What is the Environment?
It goes by many names. The vacuum. The subspace/counterspace/interspace/electromagnetic field. The system. The inertial plane. Zero-point energy. Dark matter. Dark energy. Spacetime. Quantum foam/fluid. Neutrino sea.
The ancients called it ether (or aether). Ultimately, it doesn’t matter much what you call it. In any case, it is the subtle ubiquitous substrate of reality as we know it. When undisturbed, it is in the null pressure condition of inertia. Under different pressure conditions, it gives rise to all the phenomena we know in the physical universe.
Isn’t Ether Just Old Superstition?
This medium of propagation, the Ether, must exist. This medium must be a prominent thought in our investigations.
James Clerk Maxwell, Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
They say much about the Einstein’s theory now. According to Einstein the ether does not exist and many people agree with him. But it is a mistake in my opinion. Ether’s opponents refer to the experiments of Maykelson-Morli [Michelson-Morley] who made attempts to detect the Earth’s movement relative to the fixed-bed ether. These experiments failed, however it didn’t mean the ether’s non-existence. I always based as fact the existence of mechanical ether in my works and therefore I could achieve positive success.
Nikola Tesla
Mainstream modern physics teaches that the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the existence of ether. There have been various theories regarding ether, and saying that ether isn’t stationary in proximity to matter is not to disprove its existence. Even Tesla refuted “Maxwellian” or fixed/solid ether. To say that A is not X and B is not X is not to disprove the existence of X. It is simply an attempt to use a blanket strawman argument to dismiss X by proxy.
It is also interesting to note that versions of the Michelson-Morley experiment have been performed multiple times with positive results. For example, Miller in 1933 got positive results at higher elevations and Galaev in 2001 and 2002 got positive results at low elevation with better equipment.
See:
Miller, D., 1933, The Ether-Drift Experiment and the Determination of the Absolute Motion of the Earth: Reviews of Modern Physics, v. 5, no. 2, p. 203-242.
Galaev, Y.M., 2001, Etheral wind in experience of millimetric radiowaves propagation (English translation): Spacetime & Substance, v. 2, no. 5, p. 211-225.
Galaev, Y.M., 2002, The measuring of ether-drift velocity and kinematic ether viscosity within optical waves band (English translation): Spacetime & Substance, v. 3, no. 5, p. 207-224.
The historical ambivalence toward the ether is particularly reflected in Einstein’s work. He has gone on record as thinking it irrelevant (1905), unnecessary (1907), necessary (1922), unnecessary once again, and finally immaterial (1961). At the end, Einstein refused to admit that he had left us with ‘completely empty space.’ Instead, his space was filled with a mathematically derived “field” which only incidentally contained no matter and had no material properties at all. In the currently accepted theory, light is viewed as both matter and motion, and the ambivalence remains. The eventual return to the wave theory of light will require some kind of material medium that would at the same time be part of the intergalactic interconnection.
Glenn Borchardt, The Ten Assumptions of Science
Everything is Ether
Not only does the ether exist, but everything you know is ether in one form or another. It is the medium in which light waves propagate in a “vacuum”, which is why it has sometimes been called “luminiferous”. It is the substance that gets churned up as matter in high-energy standing wave configurations. Oft-reified posterior attributes and derivatives of ether pressures include such abstract concepts as waves, fields, charges, space, and time.