this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The Ether/Aether

That there is an invisible structure all around us that allows gravity, light and electricity to move through it. Now debunked or replaced.

Trepanning to release evil spirits.

Drill a hole in your head as a cureall for any mental behaviour abnormalities. Still practised as an emergency surgery, only to release life-threatening blood and pressure buildup inside the cranial cavity.

Blowing smoke up your ass

Gut pain? Almost drowned? Time to blow some tobacco smoke up your bum. Discontinued.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fun fact: This is also how Ethernet (wired network connection) got its name. Ether was already dismissed as a theory, but "omnipresent, completely-passive medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves" was a good description of hardware layer that can transfer data in a way that's abstracting all the signal handling complexity for higher layers.

So in a way I'm actually sending this comment via Ethernet.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Huh, now I wish wifi was just called the ether

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Lets make the change now, all wireless data, 'wifi', the cloud, it all comes from the ether.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Interestingly, we've kind of looped all the way around. We describe the particles of the universe with omnipresent fields, which isn't really the same idea as aether but has some neat similarities.