"I hold in fact (1) That small portions of space are in fact of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface which is on the average flat; namely, that the ordinary laws of geometry are not valid in them. (2) That this property of being curved or distorted is continually being passed on from one portion of space to another after the manner of a wave. (3) That this variation of the curvature of space is what really happens in that phenomenon which we call the motion of matter, whether ponderable or etherial. (4) That in the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation, subject possibly to the law of continuity."
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William Kingdon Clifford, "On the Space-Theory of Matter," Abstract (read Feb 21, 1870) from the Cambridge Philosophical Society's Proceedings II (1876) pp. 157-158
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether
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Luminiferous aether
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