Modern Aether Science

Modern Aether Science is a 1972 book by Harold Aspden, published by Sabberton Publications in Southampton, England. Aspden presents himself as a Doctor of Philosophy of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the book follows his earlier Physics without Einstein, issued in October 1969. The stated purpose is twofold: to attack what he calls abstract philosophical dogma that he believes is holding physics back, and to record progress in extending the physics of the earlier volume — specifically on the formation of the solar system, the stability and structure of the atomic nucleus, and the periodic reversals of the Earth's magnetic field. Aspden describes the treatment as deliberately non-mathematical, on the argument that a basic comprehension of the universe need not be founded in mathematics. A mathematical sequel, Aether Science Papers, is announced as forthcoming from the same publisher.

The book's organizing claim is that the aether has to be revived for a complete understanding of physical science. Aspden frames this as a corrective to a physics that has, in his view, substituted operational definitions and abstract formalism for explanation. The available excerpt covers the introduction, the contents list, and selected chapters, so the summary below reflects only what those portions establish; the presence of chapter titles such as "The Origin of the Solar System," "The Nuclear Aether" and "The Earth's Electricity" is not evidence about their contents.

Time, simultaneity and the lightning example

Aspden opens by arguing that time is one of the most basic sense references available for understanding the environment, and that because it is so fundamental its constancy ought to be treated as effectively timeless. He contrasts this with Einstein's treatment of simultaneity, which he characterizes as an unnecessary complication. His illustrative case is lightning: he notes that Einstein does not explain lightning at all, whereas Franklin did. In Aspden's reading, Einstein uses lightning merely as a flash of light signalled at a finite speed in order to define what is and is not simultaneous, so that an observer who sees two flashes at once may still know they were not simultaneous — and may then wonder why the measure of time must be modified to suit the theory. Aspden proposes instead to proceed on the conviction that an instant in time is universal, and to see whether phenomena such as lightning can be understood on that foundation rather than by bringing physical experiences in to explain variations in the measure of time while leaving the nature of time unexplained.

He supports this position by quoting Nordenson (1969), who is sharply critical of Einstein's treatment of simultaneity and describes the claim that the concept has no a priori existence — acquiring sense only through physical experiments — as a remarkable philosophical proclamation. Aspden adds that however open-minded one is, an instant in time being universal is necessary if only as a matter of definition, and asks why one would adopt Einstein's definition when the natural sense reference is available.

Earnshaw's theorem as a constraint on aether structure

A central historical argument in the book concerns the Reverend Samuel Earnshaw (1805–1888), whose theorem Aspden says was used to reject his own papers. Earnshaw's theorem holds that an isolated electric charge cannot remain in stable equilibrium under the action of electrostatic forces alone. Aspden notes that the same question — who was Earnshaw? — had troubled W. T. Scott, who traced the origin of the theorem and published his findings in the American Journal of Physics in 1959 under the title "Who Was Earnshaw?"

According to Aspden's account of Scott's research, a treatise published by Cambridge University Press in 1879 referred to a paper read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1839 and later printed in the Society's Transactions, volume 7 (1842), pages 97–114. Earnshaw's paper was titled "On the Nature of the Molecular Forces which regulate the Constitution of the Luminiferous Ether." In it, Earnshaw proved that the aether could not consist of electric charges held in a relatively stable configuration if the forces between them follow the usual inverse-square form of Coulomb's law. For stability, Aspden explains, the law of interaction between mutually attracted elements must differ from that between mutually repelled elements; an inverse-square law of gravitation will not hold a particle system stable against electrostatic repulsion that also follows an inverse-square law. Aspden quotes Earnshaw's own conclusion that the luminiferous medium cannot be constituted of such particles, and that the coincidence of numerical results derived from a medium of such particles with experiment shows only that numerical agreement is no certain test of a theory when limited to a few cases.

Aspden treats this as a century-old insight that supports his framework: because inverse-square forces cannot hold a particle system stable, the aether's interaction law must treat attraction and repulsion differently. He presents the theorem not as an obstacle but as a structural clue about how the aether must be built.

Reaction effects and the ferromagnetism calculation

The book's most concrete quantitative claim appears in its discussion of magnetism. Aspden argues that the force on an electric charge moving in a magnetic field arises because energy conditions involving reaction effects optimize that way — that energy optimization is more basic than force. Consequently, when considering how a charge reacts in a magnetic field, what matters is the deployment of energy in reacting to the effective field.

He then applies this to the body-centred cubic structure of an iron crystal. If the magnetism shares each of the three cube directions equally — bi-directional in two axes and uni-directional in the third — then one third of the total instantaneous magnetic field is the effective polarization. This develops a reaction effect of one half of that, determining the energy deployed to provide the reaction field. Because the reaction is shared between the three axes as well, Aspden arrives at a polarization of one third of the instantaneous action less one half of one ninth of the instantaneous action, which is five eighteenths of the primary quantization.

He states that the energy analysis shows iron to be ferromagnetic due to the contribution of electrons in the second Bohr orbit, with two electrons contributing to the ferromagnetic state because this gives eight Bohr magnetons when the double action is allowed for. Five eighteenths of eight is 2.222 Bohr magnetons. Allowing a little time for the magnetism to move from one direction to another, he expects the actual value to be slightly less than this, which he says compares well with the measured value of 2.221. He reports that similar analysis succeeds for cobalt and nickel, allowing for different crystal structures — two electrons per atom in half the lattice structure for face-centred nickel, and two electrons for each atom in the close-packed hexagonal structure of cobalt. Aspden concludes that the evidence of reaction effects in ferromagnetic material is strong and points to the corollary of a reacting aether, making magnetic phenomena particularly important in judging whether the aether should be recognized.

The numerical agreement is presented within Aspden's own framework and is asserted rather than independently derived or replicated in the excerpt. It is also worth noting the internal tension between the book's stated non-mathematical approach and its reliance on this numerical derivation for its strongest empirical-looking result.

Gravitation as a magnetic phenomenon

Aspden asserts that gravitation is a magnetic phenomenon, readily explained and seated in a magnetic disturbance at the universal frequency of the aether. He says it can have certain steady-state characteristics in respect of interactions between gravitating elements but will not interact with a magnetic field unless at this very high frequency of the aether — the frequency of photons developed when electrons are annihilated. He further claims that the constant of gravitation G can be derived in terms of the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron, based on an analysis of the aether that he refers to elsewhere (citing Physics without Einstein and a lecture given to the Magnetics Group of the German Physical Society in Salzburg on 29 March 1971).

In this picture, the state of magnetism in space corresponding to a gravitational field means energy deployment from the joint orbital motion shared by matter and aether charge. The aether undergoes charge displacement due to out-of-balance effects otherwise arising from the presence of matter, and the harmonious orbital motions of this displaced charge resemble the orbital motions of the electrons contributing to ferromagnetism. Energy is deployed from this motion and converted into the kinetic energy released to matter when a body moves under a gravitational force.

The Michelson–Morley question

Aspden addresses the traditional conflict between aether theory and the null result of the Michelson–Morley experiment. He says he has dealt with this conflict in his previous works and has nothing new to add, but refers to a recent analysis by Ruderfer (Lettere al Nuovo Cimento, Series I, volume 3, 1970, pages 658–662), who reviewed the subject and concluded that the aether is very much in evidence and in no way rejected by the Michelson–Morley approach.

Aspden quotes Ruderfer at length. Ruderfer argues that the search for dynamic proof of an ether has been sterile and has distracted attention for over a century from the original fundamental question of whether the space between matter is a void or a plenum. Approached that way, the ether can be viewed as a natural extension of the known hierarchical structure of matter — ponderable bodies, compounds, atoms, elementary particles — and may be regarded as the repository of all submicroscopic structures beyond present observational limits, with energy properties following inevitably. Ruderfer also argues that measurable QED and relativistic effects of matter on the vacuum and spacetime provide independent support for ascribing energy properties to the ether, and that the minuteness of these effects implies the ether's energy density must be much greater than that of matter, making it plausible that all the energy of the observable universe originates from the ether. He concludes that the various physical disciplines appear intricately interwoven with the concept of an ether, and wonders whether the widespread rejection of an ether — deriving primarily from the inability to detect it dynamically — is worth the loss of its synergistic potential in physical theory.

Primordial particles and photon energies

Rather than leave the reader with a philosophical problem, Aspden closes with the suggestion that the aether is about to reveal its essential role as a source from which matter originates and into which matter dissipates. He states that energy is conserved but that matter consists of particles of energy in an intermediate state of decay between their primordial origin — particles with a mass some 5063 times that of the electron — and their primordial destiny, particles of about 0.0408 electron mass units, or part of the fluid plenum depending on their polarity. He says these quantities are fully explained in his analysis elsewhere (again citing Physics without Einstein).

Aspden acknowledges that such particles, as ingredients of the unseen aether, have never been detected directly. He then asks what their consequence would be for electromagnetic wave propagation if the aether contained particles of these dimensions, and whether they might affect frequencies corresponding to their annihilation or creation. The related photon frequencies, he says, correspond to energies of 2.58 GeV and 20.9 keV respectively. He presents this as a prediction for which some further experimental support is at hand, and the excerpt ends as he begins to quote a problem of cosmic X-ray astronomy. The excerpt does not contain the experimental confirmation itself, so the status of these predictions remains open in the available material.

Evidence, limits and relation to Aspden's other work

The book is programmatic and explicitly non-mathematical. Its strongest empirical-looking result — the 2.222 versus 2.221 Bohr magneton agreement for iron — is a derivation internal to Aspden's own energy-optimization framework, asserted rather than independently validated in the excerpt. The Ruderfer and Nordenson citations are supportive secondary sources rather than new experimental evidence. The primordial-particle and photon-energy claims are presented as predictions awaiting experimental support. The excerpt is partial, covering the introduction, contents and selected chapters, so the absence of a topic within it is not evidence of its absence from the book.

The book sits at the head of a long line of Aspden's aether work. It is the non-mathematical predecessor to the announced Aether Science Papers, and its reaction-effect argument is an early formulation of the reaction-field and A-field claims that recur in his later writing. Its G-from-charge-to-mass-ratio claim is an earlier version of the graviton-decay derivation, and its use of Ruderfer to defuse the Michelson–Morley objection is an early instance of a defensive move that reappears in his later preferred-frame and synchronous-lattice arguments.

References

• Harold Aspden, Modern Aether Science, Sabberton Publications, P.O. Box 35, Southampton, England, 1972.
• Harold Aspden, Physics without Einstein, October 1969.
• W. T. Scott, "Who Was Earnshaw?", American Journal of Physics, 1959.
• Samuel Earnshaw, "On the Nature of the Molecular Forces which regulate the Constitution of the Luminiferous Ether," Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vol. 7 (1842), pp. 97–114.
• M. Ruderfer, Lettere al Nuovo Cimento, Series I, vol. 3 (1970), pp. 658–662.
• Nordenson (1969), on Einstein's concept of simultaneity.
• E. K. Conklin, Nature, 7 June 1969, p. 971.
• F. Sherwood Taylor, Science Past and Present, Heinemann, London, 1945, p. 129.
• A. Einstein, Relativity, Crown Publishers, New York, 1961, p. 25.

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