© CORREA&CORREA, 2001   Why should we again choose to speak of an aether? Isn't that like resurrecting the notion of God, a single God, in scientific terms? It is a poorly grasped truism that the Michelson-Morley Experiment 'ended once and for all any notion that an Aether did or could exist'. We have already written extensively on this matter (see Infinite Energy, #'s 38 & 39), but let us say again in a summary fashion that the Michelson-Morley Experiment did not, in any way, do away with any possible consideration of the Aether. What it did do away with was consideration of a fixed aether that, to boot, was electromagnetic in nature. Einstein himself supposed, until well into the 1920s, that there could and should be an Aether and that, in all likelihood, it would prove to be gravitational. Later, of course, a flawed geometrical analysis more than satisfied him, and there no longer remained a need, in his mind, to think of the gravitational field as an actual energy flux. Instead, his theorizing resorted to deformations of a quasi-static geometry. Einstein felt legitimized, in a sense, to do this because he thought that this was where the 'technologized' senses, the laboratory experiments and the Gedanken experiments inevitably led. But this turn in his thinking is, in a sense, a betrayal of his earlier positions. And, to this day, those who speak of an aether are only able to conceive of it as an electromagnetic reality. Well, our theoretical work has news for them. Both the friends and the foes of Aether theory have always fought, and continue to fight, on the grounds that the Aether is an electromagnetic reality - or an electromagnetic unreality. Einstein, in the 1920s, actually had a reading of the Michelson-Morley Experiment similar to that which Aetherometry proposes - maintaining that it had only disproved that the Aether was stationary and was electromagnetic in nature. This was truly a novel insight. We drew attention to this little-remembered fact of Einstein's thought in our article entitled Consequences of the Null Result of the Michelson-Morley Experiment, which appeared in issue #38 of Infinite Energy, and as a result, slowly, we are beginning to see this realization being taken up in other articles as well. Likewise, Herman Oberth believed that the gravitational field was an energetic reality that could be controlled and engineered - though not by electromagnetic means. And Reich, of course, also stood apart from the crowd and introduced the term 'orgone' in order to designate a domain of energy which could not be confused with any notion of an electromagnetic aether or massbound electric fields. But just because the Aether is not electromagnetic does not mean that a concept of an Aether properly enunciated does not have a genealogical line and a proper place in the structure of physics. One could begin this ungrateful task by seizing the break introduced by Reich in conceptualizing a dynamic Aether: previously the Imponderable was construed as having mass but not weight; yet, based upon the identity of inertial mass and gravitational mass (or mass-equivalent wavelength, in Aetherometry) - the very identity which was cardinal for Einstein's General Theory of Relativity - Reich was brought to realize that the Imponderable is not just weightless, but also noninertial and thus massfree. Here lies the break, an epistemological rupture that puts into perspective the error in Einstein's interpretation of the Jeans relation, E = mc2. As B. Russell put it, it might appear that mass and energy are very different things, "but it has turned out that energy is the same thing as measured mass". Well, it is not. Mass, like wavelength, is but one of the (possible) constituents of energy and, what is yet more fundamental, energy exists in massless forms where the function filled by mass in mass- energy, or in the world of Matter, is filled instead by a free wavelength function. Secondly, it so happens that what characterizes the modern notion of the Aether, the notion put forward by Aetherometry, is not just that the Aether is dynamic; not just that it is not electromagnetic or that it is weightless; but also that, as Reich quite rightly contended, the dynamic Aether is massfree. This is its critical characteristic. Thirdly, there is this 'strange and unfinished' rupture marked by the concept of 'orgone' energy, a concept that initially was practically synonymous with the dynamic Aether, though would later be de facto displaced from this sense by the discovery of DOR. Reich never had the opportunity to explore this disjunction of massfree energy sufficiently to realize that even the duality of OR and DOR does not exhaust the world of the Imponderable, the world of the massfree Aether. If the manifolds of Space and Time must be thought of as distinct and independent from mass or mass-energy, independent, in a word, from the world of Matter, from its inertia and its gravitational fields, then the very energetic envelope of these two manifolds bears no electric property and yet generates Space and Time. Indeed, no one has ever shown that production of Space and Time is of necessity an electric process. This short and concise thought alone indicates the cosmological breadth of the problem since, as Aetherometry proposes, the nature of the OR and DOR radiations is precisely that they are electric forms of radiant energy, bearing ambipolar and massfree charge through the medium of longitudinal waves. Likewise, to add to the posing of this concrete problem, phenomena of 'latent heat', antigravitation, cloud-formation and the acquisition of higher- order states of the intrinsic potential energy of molecules, etc, all betray or indicate the action of a massfree energy flux which is not electrical, even if it can and does interconvert with ambipolar massfree energy. We are led to conclude that the Aether is a polyvalent domain distinct from Matter. This needs to be fully understood: Matter, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, is but Aether energy imprisoned in electrically stable constructs that deploy inertial properties in order to conserve both mass (mass-energy) and massbound charge. But Aether energy, as the pristine domain of massfree energy, is neither electromagnetic, nor composed of photons, nor monopolar electric nor even electric per se. The Aether encompasses both electric and nonelectric forms of massfree energy, with the former being ambipolar and not monopolar. All monopolar charges are massbound, ie bound to inertial charge carriers. All massfree charges are ambipolar, and they may have energy which belongs to one of two spectra, OR or DOR. Orgone is therefore simply a subtype of aether energy, affine with the living. Moreover, the cosmological problems raised by the Aether essentially concern not its electric formation, but its nonelectric energy form, and how it produces sensible thermal photons with the temperature of the Cosmic microwave Background Radiation (CBR). Thus the concept of an Aether as the domain of massfree energy, whether electric or not, is a functional concept that addresses the perception of the Imperceptible, of that massfree Imponderable that deploys even Space and Time as of all eternity. Here is an infinity that cannot be normalized or renormalized, nor reduced by thought. For these various reasons we cannot and should not invent a new word to describe the Aether; instead, we should seek to learn and comprehend what Reich discovered, the domains of massfree electric energy, and, in particular, the physical and chemical affinity that the OR portion of this domain has for Life and the living. If anything, the indefinition of the term 'orgone' and the shift in physical meaning it underwent worked against Reich's scientific process of investigation. Because this word, OR energy, had true specificity in the ambipolar range of Aether energy and, further, because of its specific connotations with respect to cellular biology, this confusion opened the gates to barbaric usages of mysticism in interpreting Reich's theory. Aetherometry is very unforgiving in this respect. The Aether is not a ZPE continuum, precisely because there isn't any electromagnetic continuum; nor is the Aether the same as Reich's orgone; the world of the Aether encompasses orgone as one of its subdomains, electric and within physical boundaries that science can ascertain and which Aetherometry has discovered. More relevant to the present-day state of Physics is the fact that OR energy is a 'subchapter' of the massfree Aether which produces the entirety of the beneficial or LFOT blackbody radiation as well as most of the 'latent heat' that all living reactions - aerobic and anaerobic and photosynthetic - employ. Here, Reich's discovery and the new term 'orgone' could be, or could have been, a powerful tool, a new reality, instead of an unnecessary duplicative word that most people simply assimilate to the old electromagnetic aether. This is precisely the mistake of most aether theorists, Reichians included, who continue to return to the old aether studies, like those of Miller: they persist in imaginarily re-demonstrating an aether that would still be static - and electromagnetic at that. This only proves the profound insufficiency of their reading of Reich. The critical break is precisely this: Reich used the word 'orgone' hesitantly in an inductive experimental fashion, but failed to construct for it the accurate concept. In the mouths of his followers it would become, instead, a catch-all phrase lacking any clear definition. But the Aether is an energetic reality that - even without knowing anything about orgone accumulators, electroscopes, orgone motors, Tesla coils, etc.- we must still wonder about with the tools of science. For as soon as we have to contend with the reality of a cosmic microwave background radiation filling the entirety of Space, or attempt to understand Space and Time outside of Relativity, the insistent questions of both 'latent heat' and the Aether resurface. Cosmologically, it is rather obvious that the antigravitational property of 'latent heat' has tremendous implications. The reason why energy simultaneously unfolds Space and Time is due to a very primary property of defined energy states: that aside from secondary superimposition and phase coincidences, they tend to separate themselves from the continuum they compose, as if a minimum repulsion existed between the simplest units of energy. The deeper reason why the envelope of Space and Time does not and will not collapse is found precisely in the 'antigravitic' or 'repulsive' property of 'latent heat'. This is the deeper secret of it - which it has been Aetherometry's task both to unravel and to document. So if we are to address the problems of Space and Time as functions of energy, we must first understand they are functions of that 'latent' energy in massfree form. It is precisely this 'latent' energy in massfree form which, as scientists continue to attempt to cool down an atom in a trap to absolute zero, keeps stubbornly resisting; keeps using that atom as a pick-up antenna for the capture of 'latent heat' which the atom persistently converts into the little bursts of sensible heat it releases and which, for a mass of atoms, impede the researcher from ever being able to bring any atom to absolute zero. There is, in other words, a minimal thermal heat that atoms constantly propagate, vibrating with the waves of 'latent heat' that produce and unfold Space and Time. The Aether could never be gravitational per se, because the gravitational field is created coextensively with the presence of mass-energy or Matter in that field. So, even though the gravitational field is an Aether field, ie a field of massfree energy, it is bound to mass-energy everywhere including the earth, the sun and the galaxy. But this gravitational energy, which exists by virtue of being bound to Matter and mediates all the attractions we call gravitational, is not separable from the existence of its opposite - 'latent heat'. In reality the planets are all buoyant in a 'fluid' which keeps them apart just as much as it brings them together. Gravitationally speaking, they only come together, as Reich pointed out in the context of superimposition, in the same Space but at different times. This is one of the meanings of phase Space and Time, where there can be synchronization without simultaneity or strict synchronism - a coincidence in virtual Space with an interval in Time for two different superimposing segments of the Aether lattice. Two different pieces of the lattice for the same 'ideal Space'. The positions are apparently the same but Space is effectively different, even if it appears to be the same or identical. Space is a property of energy and, as Time intervenes, the flux of energy is necessarily different for the same apparent relative position. Space is constantly recreated. The ultimate pool of Aether energy consists of the antigravitic property of 'latent heat'. Space completely devoid of Matter, at as high a vacuum as may be achieved, where virtually no types of radiant energy are to be found - that pure conjunction of Space and Time that supports no life is nevertheless energetic, and it is this unceasing flux that permits its unfolding and its expansion as Space and Time. This quantum of 'latent' energy alone synchronizes vast quantities of energy in its perpetual production of Space and Time, consistently and homogeneously to our perception - were we to arrive there as a 'perfect subject or observer'. And so, in a very real sense, cosmologically speaking, we would have to be capable of first conceiving of the 'great Inanimate' (as Castaneda once described its perception) - well before we begin to speak of anything that has to do with electroscopes, accumulators, induction coils, orgone motors, PAGDs, where electric manifestations of the Aether are instead apparent as manifestations of 'Animate energy'. We are constrained to recognize what others call 'empty space' as Space with Time, as functions of energy that irreversibly flow with the flux of Time. We are constrained to think this way, if we seek the terrain of science. This is the very challenge - the point when we will always abandon Relativity. For, if we are to defend science as the domain of the quantitative, it is the arbitrariness of the quantitative that we must exorcise by introducing the qualitative, beginning with the physical - such as the physical effects of distinct energy forms, and so on - to embody the physical boundaries of that quantitative. Without this task, there is no science, only chimeric thought. To follow Leibniz's and Deleuze's inspiration, everything else we refer to as 'other forms of energy' are the results of the folding of this very unfolded reality we call Aether. It is the folding that shortens the distances and permits the other physical effects. Most basic to all matter is that which is basic to the envelope of the cosmos itself: the production of Space and Time as properties of energy flow. Before we can talk of any of the other properties - gravitic, electric, thermal, electromagnetic, ionizing, etc. - we first have to talk about the properties of 'latent heat', because it is these that concretely support the continuum of Space and Time. The reason why there is a microwave background is precisely because everywhere there is conversion of totally unfolded, so to speak, pure Space and Time, pure continuity, into folds. The moment that superimposition of energy produces mass, this mass, the smallest speck of Matter, such as the electron and its variants, will interact with this energy whether it is latent or electric. If it is latent, it will use it to kinetically repel gravitational fields. If it is electric, it will use it as a source of electrokinetic energy and as a way of producing the punctual photons it releases. If we wanted to be somewhat crude about it, we could say that photons are but the very transient dejecta of electrons and protons. And since all hadrons are composites of protons, photons are, simply put, farts. But to imagine that the Aether in its entirety is composed only of farts is really, we have to say, an idea for farts. And we could also say that this is precisely what's wrong with Physics. The aether is not composed of farts, it is not composed of photons and it is not electromagnetic. And it is not static a fortiori. The Aether is composed of the Imponderable Dark where there is only pure motion in a smooth space, whether that motion is electrified or not. Everything else arises from it. One man asks: what is 'latent heat'? Someone answers 'it is the lost heat inside of a steam engine'. Another answers 'no, it's the intrinsic potential energy of a gas'. And still another protests 'no it's the 'latent heat' of a molecule in a vapor phase precondensate'. What we are saying is - forget about all these definitions. The structure of Space and Time is not electric and it is not gravitational either. Gravitational fields are specific fields of massfree energy that are affected to mass-energy in a state of flux, and need to be regenerated constantly for that mass-energy to conserve itself. We can certainly conceive of Space and Time in the absence of Matter. But what is it that makes Space and Time? If they are energetic components - the manifold properties of energy itself - they have to have an energy structure, they have to possess wave functions that are no different in type from any other wave functions associated with known energetic manifestations. Why should we suddenly privilege a cosmological perspective and transform it into an affair of geometry and go the way of General Relativity? Why? Why should we do that? Especially if one is committed to a treatment of Space and Time as properties of energy, this is definitely not the way to go. For topology will certainly teach us nothing about the energetic relation of Space with Time, or about the synchronisms of aether energy in its various forms. But it is an altogether different matter to understand 'latent heat', to understand how molecules have different capacities to obtain it, how they trap it in the microatmospheres surrounding them to produce the critical effects of the Van der Waals force law (to be replaced by the far more precise Aetherometric treatment) and to understand how, in the context of these different manifestations of 'latent heat', we find a common denominator which reduces to the cosmological functions of pure smooth Space and pure Simultaneity in the absence of any Matter, any charge, any electromagnetic fields, any radiative fields save the radiative field that produces both Space and Time. It is here we find the naked reality of the Aether as massfree latent energy. Beyond the darkness lies the Dark. If the Animate energy of the Aether is the Dark and the domain of ambipolar electricity, the very domain shared by OR and DOR, there is still a darker, deeper abyss, the Inanimate. It is the greatest of all molecules - since it composes the very envelope of Space and Time that we perceive as the essence of our existence in the world around us.