THE ETHER IS UNHEATABLE.
The translatory motion of a mass of matter, big or little, through the ether, is not arrested in any degree so far as observed, but the internal vibratory motion sets up waves in the ether, the ether absorbs the energy, and the amplitude is continually lessened. The motion has been transferred and transformed; transferred from matter to the ether, and transformed from vibratory to waves travelling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. The latter is not heat, but the result of heat. With the ether constituted as described, such vibratory motion as constitutes heat is impossible to it, and hence the characteristic of heat-motion in it is impossible; it cannot therefore be heated. The space between the earth and the sun may have any assignable amount of energy in the form of ether waves or light, but not any temperature. One might loosely say that the temperature of empty spaces was absolute zero, but that would not be quite correct, for the idea of temperature cannot properly be entertained as applicable to the ether.
To say that its temperature was absolute zero, would serve to imply that it might be higher, which is inadmissible.
When energy has been transformed, the old name by which the energy was called must be dropped. Ether cannot be heated.