The Disciplines & Differentiations of Mechanology

Before I can speak on the disciplines of Mechanology I must speak on the basis for Mechanology even existing... The Luminiferous Æther. In both of our worlds the study of the Luminiferous Æther continued down the same path, up until the Michelson-Morley Experiment... and that is where our worlds diverged.

On my world science experiments in light diffraction and interference determined that light behaved like a transverse wave. However, a wave could not exist without a medium to transmit it. The theorists of my world, Young and Fresnel, proposed that the universe was filled with an invisible substance they called the 'æther'. This æther had remarkable qualities that made it both rigid yet intangible, strong yet tenuous. Lord Kelvin, one of the foremost scientists of your Victorian age, as well as my former world, described it thusly: 

"Now what is the luminiferous æther? It is matter prodigiously less dense than air; millions and millions and millions of times less dense than air. We can form some sort of idea of its limitations. We believe it is a real thing, with great rigidity in comparison with its density: it may be made to vibrate 400 million million times per second; and yet be of such density as to not produce the slightest resistance to any body going through it." (From a lecture on the Wave Theory Of Light, delivered at The Academy Of Music in Philadelphia, Under The Auspices Of The Franklin Institute, On my world it was given on September 29th, 1878, while on your world it was given by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) on September 29th, 1884.

Added to that Professor Etienne Moreau hypothesized that the æther, like the matter and energy of the universe, was not evenly distributed because of its interaction with matter caused thin patches, vortices, and even compact clumps. He theorized that the interaction of matter, energy, and the æther meant that the former could be used to manipulate the latter. Nicola Tesla turned Moreau's theories into practice by formulating his 'Movement Cycle' and 'Release Cycle', which described the relationships between the three. That, in turn, allowed him to build a working Æther Propellor and opened the solar system to exploration and exploitation by the human species.

In my next journal entry I will discuss the Michelson-Morley Experiment and how our two worlds diverged in their interpretation of it.

Godspeed, Silas    

The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to measure the motion of the Earth relative to the Luminiferous Æther, a medium that permeated space, which was thought to be the carrier of light waves. The experiment was performed between April and July of 1856 by the physicists Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley at what is in your world the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and published in November of that year.

The experiment compared the speed of light in perpendicular directions in an attempt to detect the relative motion of matter through the luminiferous æther, or the ætheric wind as it was sometimes called. The result was negative, in that Michelson and Morley found no significant difference between the speed of light in the direction of movement through the presumed æther, and the speed at right angles.

But, on my world Sir James Bartleby Wittscombe, in an experiment done after the failure of the Michelson-Morley Experiment in 1856, proved that the M-M test only invalided the rigid, mechanical æther that was hypothesized in the first part of the 19th century on my world.

The modern facts of the æther in my universe is that it is a dynamic fluid, and those facts came out of his experiments. Wittscombe's experiments explained how the Michelson-Morley Experiment's results were from having the æther near the surface of the Earth moving along in conjunction with the planet. Thus locally there was no difference in the speed of light along the different paths of the interferometer because the æther was stationary relative to the experiment.

Wittscombe's main experiment pointed out that the formulas of electrodynamics, formulated by Maxwell, and the formulas of perfect fluid hydrodynamics are identical. He quotes Sir Horace Lamb's book, Hydrodynamics:

There is an exact correspondence between the analytical relations above developed and certain formulae in Electro-magentism... "Hence, the vortex-filaments correspond to electric circuits, the strengths of the vortices to the strengths of the currents in these circuits, sources and sinks to positive and negative poles, and, finally, fluid velocity to magnetic force." Hydrodynamics, Sir Horace Lamb, page 210. It was first published in 1866 on my world, on yours it was published in 1895.

The problem with the math was that the convective derivatives are non-linear and solving the equations required far more numbers crunching power than was available in the early 19th century on your world, and on my world they were not solved until the Babbage Analytical Engine was invented and perfected.

So the Ætheric equations that we use today on my world are linearized, simplified forms that make the the math not just easier, but doable. That's why the æther theorists of the early 19th century on your world had such a hard time, they did not have the Analytical Engine to help them solve the equations.

Godspeed, Silas