A few comments for the discussion of "Against the Day"

If you have time before tomorrow night, you might like to take a look at Wikipedia's very well written entry on the Luminiferous Ether. Among other things, it contains a link to an article by Dirac, written in the 1950s, suggesting a version of electromagnetism in which something rather like an ether plays a role.

I'm interested in thinking about other examples in the same sort of category, theoretical constructs that were or are inferred toexist in order to solve some problem or explain some phenomenon,but which turned out, or may turn out, in fact not to exist.

An interesting modern example is the notion of "beables" or"elements of reality" that some theoretical physicists thinkare missing from quantum theory as currently formulated andrequired to make proper sense of the theory. (A "beable" is John Bell's term for something that can really be out there,as opposed to a quantum observable, which seems, at least in some interpretations of the theory, to require an observer to bring it into existence.)

Another modern example, perhaps, are superstrings (aka branes aka various other names). Yet another, arguably, is the idea of "qualia" or elementary sensations that some suppose might be fundamental objects in a theory of the conscious mind.

In all of these cases there's a great deal of popular interest, and many people who aren't professional physicists or philosophers or psychologists hold strong views one way or the
other. It'd be interesting to try to characterise what types of scientific question evoke
such passionate popular interest. (Though perhaps one should first query whether all
these questions can properly be characterised as purely scientific: is perhaps part of the key, in many cases, that they go beyond the scope of science, at least as presently understood?)

Pynchon's playful exploration of popular fascination with scientific ideas -- the
lightarians and their fricasse recipes, and so on -- reminded me a little of a
riff about fractals by Michael Kelly, which you can find at www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/frac.htm.

Enough for now.