Which, in case anyone is wondering, is not a movie reference. The term Quintessence originally referred to Aether, and was literally viewed as the Fifth Element (along with Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire) in greek and roman times (and a lot of other ancient cultures, as well). What's interesting is that ancient descriptions of Aether are pretty close to our current view of Dark Matter.

It's there in the word, too, Quint-Essence.

And then there's the term Quintessential, Adj, "representing the perfect example of a class or quality".

@Gnosh
I would assume that Aether and Dark Matter are two completely different things. It was my understanding that the Aether theory was largely dismissed by the scientific community whereas we are still studying Dark Matter.

This is a question for The Queue!

What is the difference between Aether and Dark Matter?

Space is expanding differently than scientist's models predict from what we can observe (stars, galaxies, etc). One of the ways to get the model to work is to assume there's something we can't observe directly, but has an effect on the Universe's expansion (i.e. Dark Matter).

The Aether was the substance that scientists thought was between the planets and stars. They thought that light needed a medium to travel in, like sound waves do. Because they can't measure it's effect, they determined there was no (A)ether.

@hold up:

Aether was invented by scientists trying to explain the duality of light: particle and wave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

Dark matter is postulated to exist because the observed gravity in certain areas of space is higher than normal. This could be caused by matter which we aren't able to see, ie. dark matter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter.

Best thread ever!

@daltonist_bull

Nope, Aether is much older than that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_%28classical_element%29). Aether, originally, is the stuff which the celestial spheres were made of (According to Aristotle). Hence being the first element, when luminferous aether was a theory, we already had some idea of elements, so calling it "quint essence" or the fifth element would have been very simple.

Appearently I need much more coffee this morning;

Omestes11

3-20-2009 @ 2:05PM
Omestes said...

@daltonist_bull

"...Hence being the fifth element..."
"....so calling it "quint essence" or the fifth element would have been very strange...."