without setting it in motion. So here was a case comparable with that
of a railroad coach open on all sides. There certainly should have
been a powerful "ether wind" blowing through the earth and all our
instruments, and it was to have been expected that some signs of it
would be noticed in connection with some experiment or other. Every
attempt along that line, however, has remained fruitless; all the
phenomena examined were evidently independent of the motion of the
earth. That this is the way they do function was brought to the front
by Einstein in his first or "special" theory of relativity. For him
the ether does not function and in the sketch that he draws of natural
phenomena there is no mention of that intermediate matter.

If the spaces of the universe are filled with an ether, let us suppose
with a substance, in which, aside from eventual vibrations and other
slight movements, there is never any crowding or flowing of one part
alongside of another, then we can imagine fixed points existing in it;
for example, points in a straight line, located one meter apart, points
in a level plain, like the angles or squares on a chess board extending
out into infinity, and finally, points in space as they are obtained
by repeatedly shifting that level spot a distance of a meter in the
direction perpendicular to it. If, consequently, one of the points
is chosen as an "original point" we can, proceeding from that point,
reach any other point through three steps in the common perpendicular
directions in which the points are arranged. The figures showing how
many meters are comprized in each of the steps may serve to indicate
the place reached and to distinguish it from any other; these are, as
is said, the "co-ordinates" of these places, comparable, for example,
with the numbers on a map giving the longitude and latitude. Let
us imagine that each point has noted upon it the three numbers that
give its position, then we have something comparable with a measure