Aethers were invented for the planets to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic affluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to another, and so on, until all space had been filled three or four times over with aethers.... The only aether which has survived is that which was invented by Huygens to explain the propagation of light.
(参考訳)
エーテルは、惑星の泳動、電磁気の振る舞い、そして我々の日常に起こる様々な事象を説明するために発明された。しかし、辻褄を合わせるためには、エーテルの理論は三重にも四重にも変更され、複雑怪奇なるものとなった。...結局のところ、ホイヘンスが光の伝播を説明するために発明したもの以上に納得できる理論は、残らなかった。
出典^ 『屈折光学』, ルネ・デカルト『増補版デカルト著作集』 1巻、青木靖三・水野和久訳、白水社、1991年。
^ 広重(1960) p.24
^ 広重(1960) p.31
^ C.Huygens(1690) "Traite de la lumiere"(光についての論考)
^ 広重(1968)
^ 広重(1960) p.43
^ 広重(1960) p.63
^ R. J. Kennedy; R. E. Thorndike (1932). “Experimental Establishment of the Relativity of Time”. Phys. Rev. 42 (3): 400-418.
^ Born, Max (1962). Einstein's Theory of Relativity
参考文献
Whittaker, E.T. (1910), 1. Edition: A History of the theories of aether and electricity, Dublin: Longman, Green and Co., pp. 411-466
Whittaker, E.T. (1951-1953), 2. Edition: A History of the theories of aether and electricity, vol. 1: The classical theories / vol. 2: The modern theories 1800-1950, London: Nelson
Kenneth F. Schaffner: Nineteenth-century aether theories, Oxford : Pergamon Press, 1972. (contains several reprints of original papers of famous physicists)
Banesh Hoffman, Relativity and Its Roots (Freeman, New York, 1983).
Michael Janssen, ⇒19th Century Ether Theory, Einstein for Everyone course at UMN (2001).
Isaac Newton, Opticks (1704). Fourth edition of 1730. (Republished 1952 (Dover: New York), with commentary by Bernard Cohen, Albert Einstein, and Edmund Whittaker).
Tipler, Paul; Llewellyn, Ralph (2002). Modern Physics (4th ed.). W. H. Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-4345-0