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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extreme supporters of the principle of relativity find no place for an æther. Thus Lord Haldane in discussing the theory of Einstein writes: “Space, as a physical thing with unvarying geometrical properties, is to be banished, just for the same sort of reasons as the æther was banished before it. Only observable things are to be recognised as real in the new system of modern physicists.” On the other hand, many followers of Faraday and Maxwell have regarded æther as the primary real substance; all mass, momentum, or energy being mass, momentum, or energy of the æther. Without entering into a discussion of the significance of physical “reality,” we may, with most physicists, agree to use the concept of æther as giving a model, inadequate though it is at present, for the interpretation of physical phenomena.
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