Talk:Einstein's views on the aether

Einstein's inconvenient views on the aether

First off, I want to emphasize that I think the WP:BOLD split of Luminiferous aether was in good faith and although I've reverted per WP:BRD, there seems to be little danger of a pov fork developing here. Ideally, I'd want to encourage the development of this article, so that material that can be adequately presented in WP:SUMMARY style back at Luminiferous aether, can be expanded upon here:

1. The length of that article would be better addressed by converting the meticulously detailed accounts of confirmation failures to list format.
2. As this satellite article will, at best, be derivative of that article, (presumably an expansion of notable material germane to it), it cannot be shortly dismissed from it's original context. If it could, this article would have a serious problem with WP:N.

Moreover, please forgive me for noticing that that all of Einstein's views on the aether were not removed... only those that demonstrate inconsistencies with the article's portrayal of him and his theories as being opposed to the aether were removed. I appreciate that, from a certain point of view, one is a laudable, highly significant achievement, while belaboring the other must seem like mud-raking. Of course, the articles cannot be written from a certain point of view...

For the reader, it would be less confusing if it were simply acknowledged that Einstein was ambivalent about the continued use of the term "aether" in some capacity. The current lede is incomprehensible:

Einstein's views on the aether concern Albert Einstein's rejection of the luminiferous aether (having a certain state of motion) in his theory of special relativity, and his occasional usage of a relativistic aether (having no state of motion) describing the metric of general relativity. While the scientific mainstream community followed Einstein's rejection of the aether, his later usage of this terminology never gained widespread support.

Please reflect on the relative merits of attempting to portray him as primarily rejecting some such and incidentally suggesting some other.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 09:34, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, I will try to improve the introduction. (For general discussion see Talk:Luminiferous aether#Einstein's views. --D.H (talk) 10:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

The article luminiferious aether is about the old mechanical aether models, to which this article is only indirectly related -especially the second section. So merging is not appropriate (at most, it can merged with "aether theories"). If you really want to improve the article, please provide some additional secondary sources which we can use. --D.H (talk) 14:48, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

And regarding the "neutrality" template: What exactly isn't described in a neutral way in the article? The term "new relativistic aether" was used by Kostro, also that Einstein's aether terminology wasn't subsequently used by the physics community, and that Einstein's aether is very different from the older aether models. --D.H (talk) 18:52, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

D.H., I've asked for it to be reviewed for neutrality, (not by you).

Regarding the "merge" template: you had indicated at Talk:Luminiferous aether#Einstein's views that you've expanded the material here, but I take it those expansions were, in fact, not apropos to that article. In which case, there's still no reason the well-cited material that was unilaterally removed from there shouldn't remain—as you wouldn't allow that, I suggested it be merged back, fwiw.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 19:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)