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Stokes (1845) supposed the the Earth drags the local ether along with it, forming what is now recognized as a viscous boundary layer, and solved the problem of stellar aberration by determining how a light wave from a star changes as it crosses this ethereal boundary layer...

There can now be little doubt remaining that the so-called 'dark matter' is the ether, and 'dark energy' is the intrinsic energy of the ether.

Maxwell's Equations were, and still are, derived for a uniform stationary ether and are not, therefore, the general equations of electromagnetism...

An attempt is made to construct an etherial cosmology based on two primary premises; that, with an ether, the universe may be finite and have a finite boundary with a true vacuum or void; and that the expansion in a vacuum of any finite quiescent mass of gas will lead asymptotically to a unique spherically symmetric accelerating outward flow...

A new physical theory of the refraction of light is presented, using the mathematical fact that equations of acoustics and optics are identical...

The real space-time of Newtonian mechanics and the ether concept is contrasted with the imaginary space-time of the non-ether concept and relativity. In real space-time (x, y, z, ct) characteristic theory shows that Maxwell's equations and sound waves in any uniform fluid at rest have identical wave surfaces. Moreover, without charge or current, Maxwell's equations reduce to the same standard wave equation which governs such sound waves. This is not a general and invariant equation but it becomes so by Galilean transformation to any other reference-frame. So also do Maxwell's equations which are, likewise, not general but unique to one reference-frame. The mistake of believing that Maxwell's equations were invariant led to the Lorentz transformation and to relativity; and to the misinterpretation of the differential equation for the wave cone through any point as the quadratic differential form of a Riemannian metric in imaginary space-time (x, y, z, ict). Mathematics is then required to tolerate the same equation being transformed in different ways for different applications. Otherwise, relativity is untenable and recourse must then be made to real space-time, normal Galilean transformation and an ether with Maxwellian statistics and Planck's energy distribution.

The ten equations are derived that govern, to the first order, the propagation of small general perturbations in the general unsteady flow of a general fluid, in three space variables and time. The condition that any hypersurface is a wave hypersurface of these equations is obtained, and the envelope of all such wave hypersurfaces that pass through a given point at a given time, i .e . the wave hyperconoid, is determined. These results, which are all invariant under Galilean transformation, are progressively specialized, through homentropic flow and irrotational homentropic flow, to steady uniform flow, for which both the convected wave-equation and the standard waveequation, with their wave hypersurfaces, are finally recovered.

A special class of reference-frames is considered, namely those whose origins move with the fluid. It is then shown that, for observers at the origins of all such reference frames, the wave hypersurfaces satisfy specially simple equations locally. These equations are identical with those for waves in a uniform fluid at rest relative to the reference frame, except that the wave speed is not constant but varies with position and time in accordance with the variable mean flow. These specially simple equations appear to be invariant for Galilean transformations between all such observers.

These results are briefly applied, in reverse order, to Maxwell?s equations, and to equations more general than Maxwell?s, for the electric and magnetic field-strengths.

It is shown that Planck's energy distribution for a black-body radiation field can be simply derived for a gas-like ether with Maxwellian statistics. The gas consists of an infinite variety of particles, whose masses are integral multiples n of the mass of the unit particle, the abundance of n-particles being proportional to n^-4. The frequency of electromagnetic waves correlates with the energy per unit mass of the particles, not with their energy, thus differing from Planck's quantum hypothesis. Identifying the special wave-speed, usually called the speed of light, with the wave-speed in the 2.7^oK background radiation field, leads to a mass 1/2 ? 10^-39 (kg) for the unit ether-particle, and an average number of about 360 ether particles per cubic centimetre in the background radiation field, whose density is about 0.2 ? 10^-30 (kg)/m³.

In a gas-like ether, the duality between the oscillating electric and magnetic fields, which are transverse to the direction of propagation of electromagnetic waves, becomes a triality with the longitudinal oscillations of motion of the ether, if electric field, magnetic field and motion are coexistent and mutually perpendicular. It must be shown, therefore, that if electromagnetic waves comprise also longitudinal condensational oscillations of a gas-like ether, analogous to sound waves in a material gas, then all three aspects of such waves must propagate together along identical wave-fronts. To this end, the full characteristic hyperconoids are derived for the equations governing the motion and the electric and magnetic field-strengths in a gas-like ether, in three space variables and time. It is shown that they are, in fact, identical. The equations governing the motion and the electric and magnetic field-strengths in such an ether, and their common characteristic hyperconoid, are all invariant under Galilean transformation.