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Aether   Listen
noun
AEther  n.  See Ether.


Ether  n.  (Written also aether)  
1.
(Physics) A medium of great elasticity and extreme tenuity, once supposed to pervade all space, the interior of solid bodies not excepted, and to be the medium of transmission of light and heat; hence often called luminiferous ether. It is no longer believed that such a medium is required for the transmission of electromagnetic waves; the modern use of the term is mostly a figurative term for empty space, or for literary effect, and not intended to imply the actual existence of a physical medium. However. modern cosmological theories based on quantum field theory do not rule out the possibility that the inherent energy of the vacuum is greater than zero, in which case the concept of an ether pervading the vacuum may have more than metaphoric meaning.
2.
Supposed matter above the air; the air itself.
3.
(Chem.)
(a)
A light, volatile, mobile, inflammable liquid, (C2H5)2O, of a characteristic aromatic odor, obtained by the distillation of alcohol with sulphuric acid, and hence called also sulphuric ether. It is a powerful solvent of fats, resins, and pyroxylin, but finds its chief use as an anaesthetic. Commonly called ethyl ether to distinguish it from other ethers, and also ethyl oxide.
(b)
Any similar compound in which an oxygen atom is bound to two different carbon atoms, each of which is part of an organic radical; as, amyl ether; valeric ether; methyl ethyl ether. The general formular for an ether is ROR´, in which R and R´ are organic radicals which may be of similar or different structure. If R and R´ are different parts of the same organic radical, the structure forms a cyclic ether.
Complex ether, Mixed ether (Chem.), an ether in which the ether oxygen is attached to two radicals having different structures; as, ethyl methyl ether, C2H5.O.CH3.
Compound ether (Chem.), an ethereal salt or a salt of some hydrocarbon as the base; an ester.
Ether engine (Mach.), a condensing engine like a steam engine, but operated by the vapor of ether instead of by steam.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Aether" Quotes from Famous Books



... science normally does, the continuity of physical processes, we are forced to conclude that, at the place where the plate is, and at all places between it and a star which it photographs, SOMETHING is happening which is specially connected with that star. In the days when the aether was less in doubt, we should have said that what was happening was a certain kind of transverse vibration in the aether. But it is not necessary or desirable to be so explicit: all that we need say ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... grains of the liquor, it may extract all the colour of the tinging substance, and may dissolve all the Salt, and thereby become much more impregnated with those substances, so may all the air that sufficed in a rarfy'd state to fill some hundred thousand spaces of AEther, be compris'd in only one, but in a position proportionable dense. And though we have not yet found out such strainers for Tinctures and Salts as we have for the Air, being yet unable to separate them from their dissolving ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... auld age, that cudna but follow the mere liftin' o' the weicht o' debt, I feel as gien my sowl wad be tum'led aboot like a bledder, an' its auld wings tak to lang slow flaggin' strokes i' the ower thin aether o' joy. The great God protec' 's frae his ain gifts! Wi'oot him they're ten times waur nor ony wiles o' the deevil's ain. But I'll ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... of their sleeping flocks Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move Carrying through aether in perpetual round Decrees and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... influence of Osiris. The figures called a comb and a looking-glass are the lingal emblems of the sacred Phallic worship. The whole hierograph thus combines, in an extremely simple and instructive unity, the symbolisation of Apis, Osiris, Uphon, and Isis, Phallos, Pater AEther, and Mater Terra, Lingam and Yoni, Vishnu, Brama, and Sarsaswete, with their Saktes, Yang and Yiri, Padwadevi, Viltzli-pultzli, Baal, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton


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