It 's been nearly a century since Physics has abandoned the ether putting in its place the nothingness of the void. Well, in that nothingness nothing should happen, instead there are many physical phenomena: the dielectric and magnetic polarization of vacuum as in the matter, the displacement current, the fields that can exert forces at a distance, the energy associated with the fields, the electric potential of the vacuum, the curvature of the vacuum, there is also the temperature of the vacuum. There are also hundreds of radio and television broadcasts, so that, for the current physics, we have the absolute vacuum with inside the news!
Moreover, always in a vacuum, are generated and annihilate the virtual particles, predominantly electron positron pairs, and it has also widespread presence of energy, of bosons and other particles.
We know there is energy associated with the fields in space, then we have the absolute vacuum that it should not contain anything, instead, ironically, it contains joules of energy.
First with ether, it was possible to associate the states of the ether with these real physical phenomena .
Actually to explain everything that happens in a vacuum the University and the textbooks use the concept of the field defined as abstract state of nothingness of the vacuum, and they speak  of  "intrinsic physics properties of empty space", which is always a abstract thinking, because in the nothingness of the vacuum there can not be anything that could give support to these physical properties or  to the field.
For example, for electromagnetic waves in space, physics official speaks of - a swing of the electromagnetic polarization of the vacuum propagates in space -., Which is purely abstract idea, because if there is nothing, what is that oscillates? It 's like saying: in the vacuum there is nothing , but there is something that varies, but there is nothing.
But since all these phenomena occur in space really, than  should cast doubt on the fact that the space is empty.
The great majority of scientists in fact was in favor of ether.
Descartes argued that to make logical sense to spatial extension it is necessary a medium.
Newton, for gravitational forces, wrote that support that two distant bodies may act at a distance of one another without the presence of an intermediate medium, is a complete nonsense.
Maxwell considered the electromagnetic fields as physical states of polarization of the ether.
Einstein at first abandoned the ether; however, after presenting the theory of general relativity in which he speaks of the curvature of space, in front of the evident paradox of nothingness of vacuum that  would become bent, retraced his thoughts and then presented a new model of the ether which will be discussed later.
Despite this and despite the obvious inconsistencies of the vacuum, in the twentieth century the ether was removed, giving to the nothingness of empty all the abstract properties mentioned before, and making them believe for real. All these abstract concepts are now in common use and we have forgotten that they are abstract, infact a lot of people think that in order to explain the forces that two bodies exchange at distance, is sufficient to exclaim: - with the field! - and then draw two vectors on a sheet of paper or on the blackboard. No wonder as an entity completely abstract, as the field in the vacuum, may instead exert forces true and real. It is obvious that something is missing. The same argument can be made for the curvature of the vacuum.
Let us now examine the main reasons that led to the abandonment of the ether.

They are: the experiment of Michelson - Morley, the principle of relativity and the ether wind that should slow moving objects because all the old models of the ether considered objects like foreign bodies.

                              

                                               Michelson’s Interferometer

The Michelson - Morley experiment was performed in America in 1887, it uses the interferometer shown schematically in the figure. Here briefly say that two beams perpendicular to each other, obtained by a semitransparent mirror, after being re-reflected, reach an interferometer capable of assessing the interference fringes, so that the recomposition of the two waves, after the respective journeys, proves if there is delayed relative to each other. It 's the problem of the two swimmers, one must cross the river by swimming perpendicular to the current is outward and return journeys, the other must cover the same distance swimming against the current first and then in favor of the current. In the experiment, the two swimmers are the two rays of light and the river current is the flow of ether through the instrument in motion with the Earth.
The beam perpendicular to the motion should come before, instead, with  surprise, the two rays arrived together without phase shift.
The negative result of the experiment was immediately used by detractors of the ether to deny its existence.
The Irish Fitzgerald, however, was the first to propose an idea that is curious and innovative and that the side of the interferometer parallel to the motion of the Earth makes a contraction according to the formula:
  · l = lo√ (1-β ²). with β = v / c      v speed of the object, c the speed of light
in order to make perfectly identical times of the two paths. At first it just seemed strange and arbitrary hypothesis, but soon after was made very plausible by theoretical investigations of Lorentz and Larmor. 
The two scientists proposed as follows: the shape and dimensions of a body depend on the cohesive forces between the atoms and between molecules; the nature of these forces is of the electromagnetic type and ether is the medium in which these forces are established, then these forces may vary as a function of the speed of the ether relative to the body and as a result there will be a rearrangement of the shape and the size of the body, in accordance with the formula of Fitzgerald.
During the twentieth century this contraction has been verified as true and real in many experiments with particle accelerators.
This contraction is also one of the basic concepts of the theory of relativity, known as the contraction of the rulers in motion, or of Fitzgerald – Lorentz
Then the experiment of Michelson - Morley failed to detect the motion of the Earth with respect to the ether because the delay of one of the two light waves is perfectly compensated by the contraction of the side of interferometer parallel to the motion. However, still to our days, there are persons that propose the experiment of Michelson - Morley as proof of non-existence of the ether, ignoring the Fitzgerald contraction
They were tempted several other experiments, all with negative results because there is always a contraction of Fitzgerald somewhere. At the end we are convinced that it will never be possible to determine our state of absolute motion, at least looking only within our laboratory.
From this non observability  of uniform motion with respect to space derives the principle of relativity: it is impossible to determine the absolute uniform motion with respect to space (looking only within your lab).
Some persons claim that the principle of relativity, denying the existence of an absolute reference bound by the ether, also denies the existence of the ether. But this is wrong, because the non-existence of an absolute reference comes only, as we have seen, by the impossibility of its experimental determination.
All the old models of ether considered the objects as extraneous bodies, that with the motion were subject to wind ether, instead just does not exist, and this was the main cause of his abandoned.
The new model of the ether, proposed by Einstein after 1916, considered the matter as a result of the energy in the ether itself and not as a foreign body, in this way you no longer have the wind ether. But before talking about that, it is necessary   to consider what is really the mass and the matter.
We know that matter is made of atoms, and the word atom literally means: - that you can not cut - or --indivisible.
Term was never used more inappropriately.
In fact we find the nucleus inside the atom, within the nucleus are protons and neutrons, and within which are the quarks.
At the time of their discovery, all  these components were considered indivisible, building blocks of matter. It is still currently with quarks, although it is known for some time that also the quarks are composite elements.
Regard to the volumes we see that the protons and neutrons are bilions times smaller than atoms, so that all the nucleons that make up the volume of a person occupying about one millionth of a cubic millimeter. The quarks themselves are billions of times smaller than nucleons, and in turn are made of something, not yet well defined, but much smaller than quarks themselves.
All these corpuscles, according to physics, are united from the binding energy and by  fields and quantums associated with this energy
In order to break down the particles gradually becoming smaller it is necessary energy gradually becoming bigger, serving only the material means necessary to reach these energies, then what is considered indivisible in turn will be broken up into much smaller shares.
In conclusion if we look inside the particles that make up matter, we find just energy and quantums associated with it.
A new possible physical picture that takes full account of the above considerations and of the new model of the ether already mentioned, can be as follows: each particle is created by energy, it is an event that takes place in the ether where the oscillatory state of energy exceeds the quantum levels, and that annihilates where falls below these levels, to reform immediately after.
With the energy now associated with a real physical state of the ether, and not as abstract state of the vacuum. Even the fields, in this new picture, find full logical sense as ether condition  and not as abstract concepts in the vacuum. The ether is then the solid  and three-dimensional scenery which supports all the physical reality, from field to matter.
The energy that generates all the particles of a macroscopic body can move freely in the ether together with the body generated without encountering any resistance, if not the opposite of external fields. This allows to the body to move freely in space, as do the planets and all the moving objects, without the opposition of the ether wind.
The ether, as well as giving logical sense to the spatial extensions, now also assumes the properties of the Mother Substance which contains within itself all the physics: fields, energy, particles, and macroscopic bodies. Also humans, and all living species, are forms of energy in the ether.
This new physical conception gives full meaning to the correspondence between mass and energy expressed by the famous formula E = mc ², and to the corpuscular and wave nature of particles.
The forces at a distance, or interactions, find a clear and coherent explanation as to the tendency of the ether to assume the state of minimum potential energy, when there are two or more bodies.
Even the three formulas of Fitzgerald - Lorentz:
· l = lo√ (1-β ²),    m = mo / √ (1-β ²),      t '= t / √ (1-β ²),         with β = v / c
can clearly be interpreted as a tendency of energy, which originates objects, to change state, shape and magnitude as a function of speed.
The energy that generates all of physical reality, including ourselves, remember the creative breath of the Sacred Scriptures, or prana of Eastern religions. And here we find a meeting point between science and religion.
In fact, recognizing the energy as a principle of existence of all matter from the particles to living organisms, and considering the objects no longer independent in an empty space and alien, but events generated by the energy in the ether and belonging to it, overcome the purely materialistic point of view of physics.
                                                                         G. R. - Genoa -

For further clarification and examples, see: Mass Energy Particles Fields Forces and New Ether of Physics, on Google, always by the same author.
Or visit the site  http://www.ricercaetereperduto.it