aether

SYMBOL

Aether doesn't have a commonly accepted symbol in alchemy, but it's often represented by

a simple circle

. Other symbols for aether include:

A hexagram and Star of David with a dot in the center
The triangle in the symbol for air
A stylized 𝓠, which is sometimes used as a symbol for quintessence

How true is it that when a thought is released it spreads in every direction through the medium of the ether?
All related (37)

IN ALCHEMY AND SCIENCE

(1) Aether was

the fifth element

alchemical chemistry

and early physics. It was the name given to the material that was believed to fill the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere. The belief in aether as an

element

was held by medieval alchemists, Greeks, Buddhists, Hindus, the Japanese, and the Tibetan Bon. Ancient Babylonians believed the fifth element to be the sky. The fifth element in the Chinese Wu-Xing was metal rather than aether.

(2) Aether was also considered the medium that carried

light waves

. Luminiferous ether was proposed in order to explain the capacity of light to propagate through apparently empty space. The Michelson-Morley experiment (MMX) led scientists to realize there was no aether and that light was self-propagating.

Key Takeaways: Aether Definition in Science

While there are several definitions of "aether," only two pertain to science.
The first is that aether was believed to be the substance that filled invisible space. In early history, this substance was believed to be an element.
The second definition was that luminiferous aether was the medium through which light traveled. The Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887 demonstrated light did not require a medium for propagation.
In modern physics, aether is most often connoted with a vacuum or three-dimensional space devoid of matter.

Hindu

They further suggest that all of creation, including the human body, is made of these five essential elements and that upon death, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature, thereby balancing the cycle of nature.[26]

The five elements are associated with the five senses, and act as the gross medium for the experience of sensations. The basest element, earth, created using all the other elements, can be perceived by all five senses — (i) hearing, (ii) touch, (iii) sight, (iv) taste, and (v) smell. The next higher element, water, has no odor but can be heard, felt, seen and tasted. Next comes fire, which can be heard, felt and seen. Air can be heard and felt. "Akasha" (aether) is beyond the senses of smell, taste, sight, and touch; it being accessible to the sense of hearing alone.[27][28][29]

Greek

In Greek mythology, Aether is the personification of the bright upper sky. He was the son of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and the brother of Hemera (Day).

Classical element

In ancient and medieval science, aether was the material that filled the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere. It was also known as the fifth element or quintessence.

The word αἰθήρ (aithḗr) in Homeric Greek means "pure, fresh air" or "clear sky". In Greek mythology, it was thought to be the pure essence that the gods breathed, filling the space where they lived, analogous to the air breathed by mortals.

Hypothetical substance

Aether is also a hypothetical substance that was proposed to account for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation through space. This substance was also known as ether. Aether theories were used to explain natural phenomena like the propagation of light and gravity. However, these theories fell out of use in modern physics after the development of special relativity.

Aether. Aether is an infinite space, akasha, from which everything unfolds. Aether element's color is gray, like a mirror, steel. The harmony of this element depends on the relation to space, even perhaps to space-time. The Indian tradition links the aether element to development quality.

Is aether dark energy?

It exists throughout the universe, including between galaxies which need energy to continue to accelerate. By definition, the aether is the substance that allows energy to travel in waves. Thus it is a likely candidate for being dark energy if the aether can be proven one day.

aether

late Middle English: from Old French, or via Latin from Greek aithēr ‘upper air’, from the base of aithein ‘burn, shine’. Originally the word denoted a substance believed to occupy space beyond the sphere of the moon. ether (sense 3) arose in the mid 17th century and ether (sense 1) in the mid 18th century.

‘

archaic•Physics

a very rarefied

and highly elastic substance formerly believed to permeate

all space, including the interstices

between the particles of matter, and to be the medium whose vibrations constituted light and other electromagnetic radiation.

"the motion of the planets would be retarded by the ether through which they moved"

According to ancient and medieval science, aether (/ˈiːθər/, alternative spellings include æther, aither, and ether), also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere.[1] The concept of aether was used in several theories to explain several natural phenomena, such as the propagation of light and gravity. In the late 19th century, physicists postulated that aether permeated space, providing a medium through which light could travel in a vacuum, but evidence for the presence of such a medium was not found in the Michelson–Morley experiment, and this result has been interpreted to mean that no luminiferous aether exists.[2]

Fifth element[edit]

Medieval concept of the cosmos. The innermost spheres are the terrestrial spheres, while the outer are made of aether and contain the celestial bodies.

In Plato's Timaeus (58d) speaking about air, Plato mentions that "there is the most translucent kind which is called by the name of aether (αἰθήρ)"[9] but otherwise he adopted the classical system of four elements. Aristotle, who had been Plato's student at the Academy, agreed on this point with his former mentor, emphasizing additionally that fire has sometimes been mistaken for aether. However, in his Book On the Heavens he introduced a new "first" element to the system of the classical elements of Ionian philosophy. He noted that the four terrestrial classical elements were subject to change and naturally moved linearly. The first element however, located in the celestial regions and heavenly bodies, moved circularly and had none of the qualities the terrestrial classical elements had. It was neither hot nor cold, neither wet nor dry. With this addition the system of elements was extended to five and later commentators started referring to the new first one as the fifth and also called it aether, a word that Aristotle had used in On the Heavens and the Meteorology.[10]

Aether differed from the four terrestrial elements; it was incapable of motion of quality or motion of quantity. Aether was only capable of local motion. Aether naturally moved in circles, and had no contrary, or unnatural, motion. Aristotle also stated that celestial spheres made of aether held the stars and planets. The idea of aethereal spheres moving with natural circular motion led to Aristotle's explanation of the observed orbits of stars and planets in perfectly circular motion.[1][11]

Medieval scholastic philosophers granted aether changes of density, in which the bodies of the planets were considered to be more dense than the medium which filled the rest of the universe.[12] Robert Fludd stated that the aether was "subtler than light". Fludd cites the 3rd-century view of Plotinus, concerning the aether as penetrative and non-material.[13]

Aether and gravitation[edit]

Jakob Bernoulli, De gravitate aetheris, 1683

In 1682, Jakob Bernoulli formulated the theory that the hardness of the bodies depended on the pressure of the aether.[25] Aether has been used in various gravitational theories as a medium to help explain gravitation and what causes it.

Sir Isaac Newton

A few years later, aether was used in one of Sir Isaac Newton's first published theories of gravitation, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (the Principia, 1687). He based the whole description of planetary motions on a theoretical law of dynamic interactions. He renounced standing attempts at accounting for this particular form of interaction between distant bodies by introducing a mechanism of propagation through an intervening medium.[26] He calls this intervening medium aether. In his aether model, Newton describes aether as a medium that "flows" continually downward toward the Earth's surface and is partially absorbed and partially diffused. This "circulation" of aether is what he associated the force of gravity with to help explain the action of gravity in a non-mechanical fashion.[26] This theory described different aether densities, creating an aether density gradient. His theory also explains that aether was dense within objects and rare without them. As particles of denser aether interacted with the rare aether they were attracted back to the dense aether much like cooling vapors of water are attracted back to each other to form water.[27] In the Principia he attempts to explain the elasticity and movement of aether by relating aether to his static model of fluids. This elastic interaction is what caused the pull of gravity to take place, according to this early theory, and allowed an explanation for action at a distance instead of action through direct contact. Newton also explained this changing rarity and density of aether in his letter to Robert Boyle in 1679.[27] He illustrated aether and its field around objects in this letter as well and used this as a way to inform Robert Boyle about his theory.[28] Although Newton eventually changed his theory of gravitation to one involving force and the laws of motion, his starting point for the modern understanding and explanation of gravity came from his original aether model on gravitation.[29][self-published source?]

Christian Rosicrucians[edit]

Similarly, according to the Rosicrucian writings of American occultist and mystic Max Heindel [5] there is – in addition to the solids, liquids, and gases which compose the Chemical Region of the Physical World – a finer grade of matter called ether that permeates the atomic structure of the earth and its atmosphere. It is disposed in four grades of density and is considered to be a kind of physical matter (the blue haze seen in mountain canyons is said to be in fact ether of the kind known to occult investigators as chemical ether). Associated there is also a type of spiritual sight, that man will eventually develop, called etheric vision.[6] Ether is reported to be of four kinds, or grades of density in our planet Earth; their names (from the lowest or most dense to the highest or most subtle one) and their relation to the human being, from the point of view of these Esoteric Christian teachings, is as following:[7]

the "Chemical Ether": both positive and negative in manifestation and it is related to the assimilation and excretion processes;
the "Life Ether": has also a positive and negative pole and it is related to the forces of propagation;
the "Light Ether": the positive pole is related to forces which generate blood heat in the higher species of animal and in the human being and the negative is related to the forces which operate through the senses (passive functions of sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling);
the "Reflective Ether": the medium through which thought makes an impression upon the human brain and this ether contains pictures which work as reflections of the Memory of Nature found at the World of Thought.