SELF

6

S.B. Karavashkin and O.N. Karavashkina

2. The problems of physical absolute

If we put aside the development of relativity principle with its relativistic layering and concentrate our attention exceptionally on the issue which Mach raised in his "Mechanics", we will see that the problem, how to refer the absolute frame to some material body (or, rather, to the set of bodies) is actually a stumbling-block of Newtonian paradigm. Newton understood it well when said,

"It may appear that in fact there does not exist a body at rest to which we could relate the locations and motions of others…" [Newton: 2].

Hereby he realises the limitedness of his attempt to formalise the essence of the world space and processes in it at the level of knowledge of his time.

"In his 'frame of the world' Newton was far from considering the world as a whole, but mainly the most studied then region of the Universe - the Solar system. He was interesting in particular problems of motion of planets, Moon and comets, the causes of 'harmony' of this system, the substantiation of applicability of the system of world gravity to the world of stars; but the Universe as the whole remained out of frames of Newton's analysis" [Kazutinsky: 25, p. 126].

But the fact that the level of presentation of the absolute space-time achieved by Newton enabled him formulating the laws so that they have not been disproved so long time after, serves us the incentive to analyse the Newton's absolute more attentively, taking into account the knowledge accumulated after Newton.

"Up to now the Newton's philosophy seemed to many people the same understandable as the philosophy of the ancients; however the haziness of Greeks came from the actual lack of knowledge, but the reason of Newton's haziness was that the luminary of his knowledge was too distanced from our eyes. He has discovered the truths; but he sought them and left in a deep precipice; we have to go down and extricate them to the bright daylight" [Voltaire: 26, part 2, p. 314].

To make our analysis more consistent, we have first of all to bring back the aether as the material substance to its right place. The fact itself that the processes in space obey the short-range law, the power fields retain their after-action when the source of field stopped its affection, and the conservation laws are identical to the corresponding laws in continua, appears quite sufficient grounds to state the presence of material substance between the material bodies. With it, as one of the authors showed [27], the concept of field cannot substitute the term of matter, as this substance is the basis for all power fields and, possibly, the basis of material bodies. Just possibly, since we actually yet know very little about the aether and its properties. Our knowledge is limited by the incomplete idea of physical processes in power fields. Even the nature of power fields is still unknown to the scientists, since general knowledge of it is limited by studying the pattern of spatial interaction between the material bodies.

"I do not state that this gravity principle is the only driving spring of physics; possibly, there exist many other secrets which we still have not snatched out of nature and which together with gravity contribute to maintain the order of the universe. For example, gravity explains neither the planets rotation, nor just so but not other determination of their orbits, nor staggering properties of elasticity, electrization, magnetism. Maybe, time will come when people accumulate enough amount of experience to cognise some other hidden springs. Everything points us that the matter has much more properties than we know. We still are only on the beach of tremendous ocean: we have so much to discover! And so many things forever will be out of our knowledge!" [Voltaire: 26, part 3, p. 320].

Indeed, there is a number of conceptions that model the structure of the aether. Among them we can find rather original and plausible (for example, the conception by V.A. Atsukovsky [28]), but they all cannot aspire the physical reliability, because of large fault between our knowledge and conceptual constructs. In particular, up to now there existed a stable opinion that the gas-like structure of the aether is physically incorrect, as the transverse waves cannot propagate in gas, but only longitudinal can, while EM waves are strongly transverse but never longitudinal. None the less, as we have proven theoretically and corroborated experimentally, transverse waves can propagate in gas medium [29], [30], and EM waves can be not only transverse but also longitudinal [31], [32]. Furthermore, we have proved that the conservation theorems essentially transform in transition from stationary to dynamical processes. Just this transformation makes possible the existence of these phenomena. As opposite to this, the relativists never could substantiate, and the main, to define the conditions of experimental realisation of these phenomena, since they tried to transform the Poisson equation for the stationary processes by way of guessing its shape in case of dynamical processes. Moreover, they substituted the induction by the dogmatic deduction.

However, the shown theoretical and experimental investigations do not, of course, lift all problems, and do not clear all blanks in the basic issues of physics. The scientists have much to get over and to grasp, before we can surely judge the physical nature of the aether. But in the while, the discrepancies of such or other conception on the structure of aether cannot doubt the very existence of this material substance, since its aforesaid definitive attributes have been multiply and thoroughly checked by the scientists. The structure will clear as we progress in the cognition of basic phenomena. Mach was right here also - that what cannot be rigorously experimentally checked and multiply re-checked cannot be put in the underpinning of the basic paradigm. Any, even the most logic abstraction will remain the abstraction, if it is not associated with something physically specific.

Alike, if we admit the space material, it per se will not solve the problem of physical absolute. Physics as the science about natural processes and phenomena is quite specific. If we suppose existent some immovable and invariable space, the natural problem arises - how can we refer to it some frame so that we could study the processes in relative systems with reference to this. But, at least up to now, we cannot refer our frame to the homogeneous absolute space as it is. It is commonly known that to do so, we have to have at least four heterogeneities doing not belonging to one direct or plane, and their mutual location subjects to no change during our observation. There are many heterogeneities in the universe, but they all move as to each other, and we know nothing, how they move relatively some absolute space.

As is known, when Lorentz created his model of aether, he thought it stationary in the entire space. Should it were not a supposition but an established experimental fact, it would solve the problem. Then, judging by the aether interaction with material bodies, we can refer to the aether some reference frame. It is not even necessary, it to be referred to some specific material bodies. It is important we to be able to know, what the velocity and direction has the body as to the material substance to which we refer our speculative reference frame. The relativistic rejoinders like

"… if we cannot impart the ether any state of motion, it is obvious that we have no grounds to introduce the ether along with the space as a special entity" [Einstein: 18, p. 279]

show again the primitivism of their approach to the philosophical problems. Space, if it was determined more definitively as the material or physical space, determines only something extensive and filled with the material substance. The dynamical processes propagate in space not due to the space but due to the material substance filling this space. The mobility of aether has no concern - of course, if we have not a goal to substitute the material substance by some abstract geometry.