The video "The Biggest Question Physicists Aren't Asking" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVyl8pGd44I) says the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 didn't disprove the existence of the aether. It reminds us that Hendrik Lorentz explained the experiment's negative results with his Lorentz ether theory (LET), which he initially developed in 1892 and 1895. The theory was improved in 1905 and 1906 by Henri Poincaré - and it was based on the aether theory of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Maxwell's equations, and the electron theory of Rudolf Clausius. The video says Albert Einstein's alternative to the aether in Special Relativity is preferred by physicists because it makes fewer assumptions. Interestingly, Einstein wondered in later years about the possibility of the aether actually existing.
Just as the building blocks in chemistry are atoms and molecules, the building blocks physics could use to determine what the aether is might be binary digits and topology. There are two clues to this conclusion. First - in his book "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking states that quantum spin tells us what particles actually look like. A particle of matter has spin 1/2 and must be completely rotated twice (720 degrees) to look the same. Added to this is - a Mobius strip must be travelled around twice in order to reach the starting point. The second clue was supplied by a paper Einstein published in 1919. That paper asks if gravitation and electromagnetism play a role in forming elementary particles.
The clues can produce the following hypothesis. The BITS or binary digits of one and zero code for a Mobius strip (similar to the way that topological figure can be viewed on the Internet). Then two Mobius figures are joined to create a Klein bottle: possibly, the doughnut-shaped figure-8 version of the Klein. The Klein bottle is immersed in the 3rd dimension, with binary digits filling in any holes or gaps to produce a technically flat and simply-connected result. This procedure is similar to computer art's Sky Replacement, where the 1s and 0s can make a smooth blue sky stretching from horizon to horizon. The 1s and 0s naturally exist on quantum scales, and imaginary numbers are essential in quantum mechanics. So the complex (real+imaginary) numbers of Wick rotation could be given a practical use by being a subroutine of the Mobius strips and becoming the 4th dimension of time which can't be separated from the dimensions of space. Trillions of Mobius strips could form a photon while trillions of more complicated figure-8 Klein bottles might form the more complicated graviton. Interaction of photons and gravitons (in a process called Vector-Tensor-Scalar [VTS] Geometry) creates the Mobius-based matter particles. In this scenario, the aether - the medium waves travel through - wouldn't be an abstract thing called space filled with alleged Virtual Particles which can't be detected and may not even exist. The medium would be a sea filled with photons and gravitons.
Another possibility is that there is no medium for the gravitational and electromagnetic waves, and that there truly is no aether. In that case, waves would not merely be described by mathematics but would literally be the result of maths. A 3D (three dimensional) cube can be regarded as a reality coded on a 2D surface - in other words, the cube is a projection from a square. The 2D square would be a nonlinear (angular) math object resulting from adding four lines, each one being separated from those adjoining it by 90 degrees. The cubic shape would result from adding, in one direction, multiple layers of the information in the square. Instead of programming a set of points to follow a straight line, they can be represented curvilinearly as a waveform and described by Fourier analysis, v=f(lambda), etc. Interacting particles can produce waves just as masses can curve spacetime to produce gravity and gravitational waves. VTS Geometry plausibly explains the inverse - it doesn't solely regard mass as the producer of gravity but also regards gravity, partnering with electromagnetism, as producer of mass. Inverting quantum mechanics, gravitational and electromagnetic waves create particles with mass (protons, neutrons, quarks, electrons, etc - even the Higgs boson). As Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow point out in their book "The Grand Design", ultimate reality does not have to be described with quarks though it certainly can be. In this paragraph, the idea of curved space is replaced by gravitational and electromagnetic waveforms travelling on curved trajectories.
The Michelson-Morley experiment DID measure an effect, but it was in the wrong direction and a much lower value than a luminiferous ether would cause. But this doesn't reject all ether models - just the luminiferous model.
The transparent mask experiment shows the ether is a real thing in our universe. (Article STOE plenum is real
)
Once again, I'm totally amazed at how a serious scientist - this time, a researcher at Guynn Engineering - can disregard the value of popular science by saying
"what is the point of your asking questions or raising topics based on interminably watching videos by self promoters and so called popularizers of science?"
It's absolutely true that popular science never provides anywhere near enough information. But that's not an insurmountable barrier unless you're a parrot who only repeats details. If you can think flexibly, the popular science is merely a launching pad. It can stimulate you to do much more research as well as applying logic and real science to what was read or viewed.
It sounds as though you prefer to limit - and unnecessarily restrict - your sources of information to science journals. They certainly give accurate, detailed information but they also present the possibility of preventing original thinking by steering your mind into a particular view of the universe which is intolerant of other ideas.
To once again incur your wrath by referring to the popular - your comments remind me of something Lex Luthor (then played by Kevin Spacey) said in a Superman movie of about 40 years ago. He said "Some people can unlock the secrets of the universe by reading the ingredients on a packet of gum".
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