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Ether is back!

Well, somewhat. Now it's in the form of Higgs field. Unlike ether, Higgs field does not interact with uniformly moving particles, only those that are accelerating.

Here's a great book I just recently listened: http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Hole-War-Mechanics/dp/031601...

It's by Leonard Susskind from Stanford. The thoughts experiments in the book are just terrific. Loved it.

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I wouldn't call it Ether, since that would imply some absolute reference frame.

There is very little in common between the old concept of "ether" and any quantum field. Analogies like the mattress model described in the article are helpful in some ways (like describing particles as excitations or ripples in the field, as here), and misleading in others (like making people think that there's some fixed medium for fundamental wave propagation).

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