Following on from Part I: http://stargazerslou...8-qualias-blog/

Part II – Space

Introduction

Before we reach Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity it is necessary to allow Maxwell a voice on our stage, for his own discoveries would play a significant role in Einstein’s own radical insights.

Maxwell – Setting the Stage

Building on Faraday’s concept of Field (that which exerts a force beyond its physical presence), Maxwell found that electric and magnetic fields were in fact a single entity and he called this entity the electromagnetic field.

He discovered that this field travelled at exactly 1,080 million km/h or 671million mph which was also that of the speed of light. Surely, then, he concluded, light must also be part of the electromagnetic field.

But with this discovery of light's speed, we find ourselves back with the age old problem. As we have seen, velocity only makes sense if it is specified in relation to another object. The only reason I say a car is going 65 mph is because it is relative to me, a stationary person on Earth, for example. However, put that speeding car in a huge plane going at 1,000 mph and I will see the car as moving faster, a whole 1,000 mph faster! This occurs because the speed of the car is added to the plane’s speed. So, if we say light travels at 671 million mph, what is the reference, the benchmark? Light is speeding in relation to what?

Maxwell had a brain wave. Ocean waves are carried by water. Sound waves are carried by air and we say sound waves travel at 767 mph only because we are referencing them to still air. So, light must also be carried by some kind of substance. Just as I suspect Newton borrowed from Aristotle’s notion of the Prime Mover to give persuasion to his Absolute Space, Maxwell did the same by borrowing from the philosopher the term Aether; the stuff of which Aristotle believed celestial bodies were made. Again, Aether was permanent, omnipresent and unchanging, another god-like figure, and light travelled relative to it.

Aether?

If I go for a swim toward a wave, the wave will approach me more quickly than if I am swimming away from it. The same is true for sound waves. So, by the exactly the same reasoning, the quicker I move through Aether, depending on which direction I decide to take, light should travel faster or slower than the stated 671 million mph. The problem was there was no such evidence of this. The famous experiment conducted by Michelson and Morley in 1887 found no such thing. No matter what they did, light continued to travel at its regular 671 million mph.

A Young Einstein

Ever since he was a young lad, Einstein had asked himself a rather bizarre question: what would a light wave look like if I could follow it at exactly 671 million mph? According to classical physics and the relativity of velocity, that light wave should appear motionless, so I will be able to reach out and cup for myself a handful of light stuff. However, for one reason and another, Maxwell’s own discoveries prevents light from ever appearing stationary. So why the paradox? What's going wrong?

It took Einstein about ten years to work out this bewildering question, and at the age of just 26 came forth with the theory of Special Relativity, a theory so startling and radical in its ramifications that it changed the entire course of classical, pre-quantum physics...

Part III will try to cover some basic aspects.