Luminiferous
The assumption of a spatial plenum of luminiferous aether, rather than a spatial vacuum, provided the theoretical medium that was required by wave theories of light.
Where a thing goes through another thing
it's easier all told should the second thing be missing,
presumed imaginary. But... when it is a wave
that needs to pass, it's altogether less discretionary
we feel the need for something there to do the waving, invisible
and undetectable, as may be. Some sort of space-based paving
across which light might stroll——or so the Victorians had it.
Not being the sorts to admit that things might come of nothing,
relativity of moral or physical sort, or any vacillation
of the gap. When they looked into the void
they generally found nothing staring back. It must
have been so comforting, to be so sure of everything
to know no wave/particle duality and never see
a single photon to have passed through both the slits.
These days, we tear their whole world picture into bits
and grind it underneath our heel. We known that now
there's no such thing as a revealed truth. We wrestle verities
from the Universe; admit we aren't the centre
of creation; feel strange elation in the lack
of an agenda. It isn't you, and it definitely is not me
but we stare into the void of the future and we hope
that somewhere far downstream something sufficiently advanced
iterates an algorithm, converges on Bethlehem.
