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swood.jpg (8k) Ether Drapes Earth
April 12, 1994 - Oil - 20 by 16 inches

$ 150.00


In the mid 19th century, there seemed to be a linguistic difficulty stemming from the research of James Maxwell, who had established that light behaved like waves. The problem was that since light behaved like waves - vibrations - then, according to our language something must be doing the vibrating. So a substance was invented called ether, which was defined as that which vibrates when light is propagated. Ether, it was said, pervades the entire universe and hangs perfectly still while the planets, stars and galaxies whiz through it completely unobstructed. Various people at various times tried to establish the presence of ether by testing the speed of light on the fore and aft side of the earth as she sailed about the sun. Confounding the researchers, light always appeared to move at a constant velocity. Scientists eventually abandoned the notion of ether when Albert Einstein introduced the concept of relativity, which explained just about everything, in the early 20th century.

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