Ether
Ether names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Ether in the ordinary use of the word
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Important: Safety Warning
This page describes the casual use of chloroform, ether, or similar anesthetics. These substances can kill by respiratory arrest with little warning and must never be used outside a medical setting.
In addition, this page describes practices involving highly flammable materials in ways that create a serious risk of fire or explosion.
In addition, this page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
in the ordinary use of the word, a light, colorless liquid having a refreshing odor and a sweetish, burning taste. It evaporates rapidly. It is so inflammable that it is classed as an explosive. It is a union of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is prepared by distilling a mixture of five parts of alcohol with nine parts of sulphuric acid. When a little of it is poured out in the palm of the hand it evaporates quickly, leaving a cold sensation. During evaporation it absorbs heat so rapidly that a fine spray of ether may be used to freeze, that is to say, harden, the tissues for the dissector's knife. The fumes of ether are used by surgeons to produce unconsciousness. See Cholroform; Surgery
Ether or ÆTHER, a medium filling The ether seems to be of all space
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or ÆTHER, a medium filling The ether seems to be of all space. the nature of an elastic solid, and, in order to account for the immense rapidity of its vibrations when radiation passes through it, its rigidity must be excessivel sively large compared with its density. It may be asked, how, if this be so, the earth can move through the ether at the rate of nearly a million miles per day. But, if we consider that shoemaker's wax is so brittle a solid that it splinters under the blow of a hammer and that it yet flows slowly like a liquid into the crevices of a vessel in which it is placed, and that bullets sink slowly down through it, and corks float slowly up through it, the motion of the earth through the ether does not seem so in- From magneto-optic comprehensible. phenomena it seems certain that something of the nature of molecular rotation is going on in the ether.
Ether in physics and astronomy
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in physics and astronomy, the name given to the substance which it is assumed fills all space beyond our atmosphere. It is thought that light is a vibration of ether. It is thought also that heat, gravity, and electricity are dependent upon ether for their existence as forces of nature. No one knows exactly the nature of this stellar or cosmic ether, and some scientists reject the idea of its existence. Its acceptance has been brought about because it offers a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of radiation, refraction, diffraction, and polarization of light.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both senses have moved. The luminiferous ether that Collier's still described in 1921 as "a medium filling all space" with the properties of an elastic solid no longer exists in physics: Einstein's 1905 special relativity removed the need for it, and the null result of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment, which found no drift of the earth through such a medium, is now taught as the classic evidence against it. Aiton's caution in 1910 that "some scientists reject the idea of its existence" turned out to be the winning side; modern physics speaks instead of fields and of spacetime itself. As a drug, diethyl ether kept surgical use into the mid-20th century but was steadily abandoned because of exactly the hazard Aiton's names "so inflammable that it is classed as an explosive" and has been replaced by non-flammable agents such as halothane and, today, sevoflurane and desflurane.
Written for this edition, 2026.