Aether And Higgs Field : A Comparative Analysis

 "Luminiferous aether" or known as "ether"was a theory proposed by 19 th century physicists and became popular among scientific community as the model of ether was able   to explain how  light or electromagnetic waves propagate from source to other areas in space . 

          Hypothetical Aether Wind Model 

James clerk Maxwell ,Nikola Tesla and other contemporary scientists believed in the concept of Ether . James Maxwell suggested that just like the sound waves propagated through air ,where air acts like a medium it may that electromagnetic waves ( light ) also travels and propagated through a medium which fills up the space uniformly ,which they called as " Luminiferous Aether"  or       " Ether" . The word" luminiferous " literally means " light bearing " .  The concept of aether was invoked to explain the ability of wave based light to propagate through empty space ( Vaccum) .                        Scientists thought that as sound waves needs a medium so does the light waves or EM waves . But later ,it was discovered that EM waves do not need medium at all to travel .

         Nikola Tesla Quote About Aether 
 

The famous"Michelson- Morley"  experiment showed that the light do not need medium to propagate at all . The experiment also failed to detect this " ether " and also failed to show that our Earth in space moving through this ether medium.  So ,the hypothesis that Earth moves through a" medium of aether" that carries light was rejected by scientific community .                                                       But in order to understand the " Higgs field "we first have to understand the " Aether " and it's nature . 

      Michelson-Morley experiment setup 

The " aether " can be explained by an analogy . Imagine the aether as a "plenum"  Space . " Plenum Space" is a space provided for air circulation for heating ,ventilation and air conditioning. So ," plenum Space " is an " air filled space "  . So ," Aether " is also like a plenum Space which fills up the vaccum or empty space . There is also some fundamental aspects in " aether model " ,which are : aether is an :  "invisible","infinite"Omnipresent"medium or substance of some sort which fills up the whole empty space . Hence , it was hypothesized that this aetheric medium can not be destroyed or can be influenced,rather it is this medium which sets particle in a particular state of motion . 

Now if we just discard some of the aspects from the " aether model " then that somehow matches with the model of recent Higgs field . For example ,unlike  the aether Higgs field do not influence  the motion of light or any particle or any way do not set the speed of objects and hence Higgs field is not a medium like the aether but a is a field of energy. 

Now , I am going to explain the fundamental ideas of the Higgs field  in order to understand it's resemblance with the fundamental ideas of aether . 

The idea of higgs field is given by Peter Higgs to explain why some particle have mass or some doesn't.  Peter Higgs and other physicists proposed the idea in order to explain the deep levels of quantum phenomena and hence ,Higgs field is a building block of "Quantum Field Theory". 

The fundamental characteristics of the Higgs field are ,that  it is a field if energy,which is omnipresent and all pervading which fills up the whole  empty space or vaccum .  

Within this  Higgs field disturbances of quantum fluctuations gives rise to a particle which is called " Higgs Boson " famously known as " God particle " so ,the Higgs Boson is nothing but a particle which acquire its own mass by the virtue of interacting with its own field . 

But how the Higgs field give particles their masses ? This is the central question ,which arises in the minds of people when they read about Higgs field .   Now ,the answer for this question is that all particles gain masses from the " interaction" with the Higgs field.

       Particles moving through Higgs Field 

Now what do I mean by the word  "interaction"? Now,imagine a field which is all pervading and acts like a "  thick sugary syrup " . The " sugary syrup " solution is a homogeneous solution . Now imagine this sugary syrup to be so thick that it restricts motion . If this syrup now transferred in a container and on that syrup some marble  balls are dropped and all marble balls are connected with strings ,then if you starting to pull the marbles towards you with a drag force then the sugary syrup will slow down the motion of these marble balls because of the concentration of this solution,and this phenomena regarding marble balls motion will give off the appearance that these marble balls are heavy or have significant mass ,but in reality it is the sugar solution which is slowing down the process of motion of marbles .  Hence just like this , all particles when move through this Higgs field slows down  which gives off an appearance that it is the these particles have mass or in other way around it seems like the Higgs field giving these particles their respective masses ,but in reality Higgs field is slowing down the speed of particles in order to restrict then to achieve the speed of light . The more a particle interact with this field ,gains more mass than other particles .                    Particles ,like proton ,neutron  have greater mass than electrons because they interact more with Higgs field than electrons .               Photon do not interact with the Higgs field at all hence photons have zero rest mass and travel at speed of light ,hence photon is the light particle . Also ,Higgs field do not interact with "Gluon" particles ,loosely interact with the " Neutrino " particle and     " Fermion " particle.   " Neutrino "interact with the Higgs field so losely such that a neutrino have 500000 times lesser mass than that of an electron.     Interaction with Higgs field giving 

But it mass itself is not generated by the Higgs field ,the act of creating matter or energy from nothing ( nothingness) would violate the laws of conservation.                       Mass is however gained by particles via their interactions with the Higgs field ,also one should remember that Higgs field do not transfer energy to particles. 

     Interaction with Higgs field giving mass 

Hence , now if we compare these two models of " aether " and " Higgs field " ,we can see that there are many parallels and it is also can be seen that Higgs field is a development within the aether theory without having any drawbacks .