Luminiferous Ether

 By hearing the word 'Ether' the most common thing come to us that it is a functional group in organic chemistry. A few people percieve ether in a different way. Actually in Theory of relativity ether or aether is a space filling substance. It was assumed that ether will act as transmission medium for the transmission of electromagnetic or gravitational forces. In General theory of relativity Albert Einstein called gravitational fields as aether. According to theorist like Einstein, de broglie, Maxwell and others there might be a medium with physical properties filling empty space, an ether.

Physicist at the end of 19th century defined ether as quasi-rigid solid. It was called quasi rigid because it had all properties of solid except that it can vibrate. It is also called luminiferous ether which means light carrying.Two American scientists Mischelson and Morley build a device called Interferometer to detect the presence of ether. They done their experiment several times but was not able to prove the existence of ether. In 1905 after the acceptance of Albert einstein's special theory of relativity, the ether hypothesis was discarded. It was thought unnecessary in terms of Einstein's assumption that speed of any electromagnetic wave is a universal constant. Now ether theory is not accepted. The electromagnetic fields are independent which are not reducible to anything else. Electromagnetic waves are non-mechanical waves which does not require any medium to travel.