[ExI] Ether vs. Relativity/was Re: Faster than light??

[Dan]

Dennis May dennislmay at yahoo.com wrote:
>> I would not be too concerned about any Earth shattering
>> consequences if it were found that neutrinos were found
>> to travel slightly faster than the speed of light - or other
>> means of signaling faster than light were discovered.
>
>> It would only mean that a variation of Lorentz Ether
>> Theory would replace Special Relativity in some
>> circumstances.  Tachyons and time travel would not be
>> a part of such a theory.  Standard LET provides the
>> same math and numbers as Special Relativity but it
>> can be adapted to supraluminal signaling - whereas
>> Special Relativity cannot.
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory
> 
> Dan Ust wrote:
>> And what modifications would you recommend to LET? 
>> Is your position currently that some variant of LET is the 
>> case or just that LET is better than STR?
> 
> I support an aether based relativity.  The Lorentz-Poincaré
> idea of what would compose an aether is not the kind of
> aether I would support but the basics are there for
> expanding and changing the theory for a different kind
> of aether theory.  I have discussed this type of aether
> elsewhere - primarily on physics_frontier on YahooGroups.
> This aether is composed of vast numbers of particles much
> much smaller than the smallest known subatomic particles.  
> They travel much much faster than the speed of light.  There
> is also a sea of very low energy photons in this background.  

Is you view that this must be particle-based to banish fields from physics? Or why do you believe there are really tiny particles? Is this akin to Ancient Greek atomism? (Not trying to be sarcastic, but wondering if this is all based on some of local contact being the fundamental way things interact in your view.)
 
> Dan Ust wrote:
>> Also, have you read Earman's _World Enough and Space-Time_?
> 
> No.

I bring this book up because it considers both pre-Newtonian and post-Newtonian space-time theories.
 
Regards,
 
Dan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20110923/2b697dc7/attachment.html>