Prior to Einstein, physicists believed that light waves, like water waves, were ripples in a medium: instead of the ocean, they posited the existence of the luminiferious aether, some form of ...

Yet the theory of aether endured. In the 17th and 18th centuries, thinkers dusted off, revised, and reintroduced the concept of aether in another influential but ultimately flawed attempt to explain ...

You may think physics has changed over the past 200 years, but it hasn’t. Today, theoretical physicists can’t understand why the universe is expanding at an observed rate that doesn’t quite mesh with ...

Reader Nick Canning says the aether theory was “ascientific”(28 January, p 54). However, this theory was one of the most fruitful in the history of science. It was useful during the development of ...

As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor experiments remained to ...

Letter from Augustin Fresnel to Fraņcois Arago, on the influence of the movement of the earth on some phenomena of optics -- On the aberration of light / by G.G. Stokes -- On the relative motion ...

As scientists cast doubt on one of Einstein’s long standing laws about the speed of light, Channel 4 News looks back at the theories which have been proved wrong over the centuries. Theory: That the ...