Okay so I know that physicists at that time assumed that the motion of the earth through the ether would cause a beam of light that is perpendicular to the motion of the earth to drift away.
But why this 'ether wind' was not thought to affect other objects, like when I toss a ball upward (perpendicular to the motion of the earth)?
I'm assuming that the ether is the medium in which not only light travels, but everything else too. Was this not how they thought of it?
If it is, then why were they thinking that light would be affected by the motion of the earth through the ether and not ordinary objects?
I have seen a ton of different websites all with different information on this topic. What exactly was this experiment and why is it related to relativity?
As I understand it, this experiment was supposed to prove that the aether existed and also determine Earth's velocity relative to this aether, and this velocity would be Earth's absolute velocity through space. The thing that confuses me is why would Earth's velocity relative to the aether would be its absolute velocity unless the aether is an absolute frame of reference which (as far as I know) doesn't exist.
Source of Text: https://www.youtube.com/user/FractalWoman/community
Here is a question I get all the time. So, I thought I would put it here so that a I can reference it, next time I get asked this question.
Question: Did the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the Aether?
Answer: NOPE. They had the wrong model of the Aether. That is what went wrong. They disproved the WRONG model of the Aether. That is a good thing. My Aether model actually PREDICTS a NULL result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. I am glad that the MM-Experiment disproved THEIR Aether. It was wrong. We are NOT moving through a static Aether. We are at rest with respect to the Aether, ALWAYS. If we are moving, then Aether is moving. Matter follows Aether.
Here is an analogy. Take a stick and throw it into a moving river.
https://youtu.be/sA5WGvP8FUc
Very quickly, that stick will be at rest with respect to the water. The river will (very quickly) start moving the stick at the same speed that the river flowing. From the perspective of the stick, the water is not moving. If the stick did an EXPERIMENT (any experiment), to detect its motion with respect to the water, it would get a NULL result. According to the logic of the MM-Experiment, the stick should conclude that water does not exist.
THAT is why the Michelson-Morely experiment got a NULL result. A NULL result does NOT mean that the Aether doesn't exist. It means that we are at REST with respect to the Aether. That is all it means. All these years and all the endless repetitoin that the null result Michelson-Morely experiment meant that the Aether doesn't exist. THEY WERE WRONG.
Gnomesaying?
Context: Our state (NSW, Australia) recently got a new syllabus for the year 12 (senior in high school) physics course, and as such we are the first year going through with the new course.
One of the things we need to learn is evidence for Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Throughout the year, my physics teacher has said that the Michelson-Morley experiment does not provide evidence for SR as the result was "the relative velocity of the Earth and the aether is probably less than one sixth the Earth's orbital velocity, and certainly less than one-fourth" - it could not conclude the aether existed, and it didn't set out to prove that light was constant regardless of the frame of reference.
However, during my course of studying for the final exams, I have been finding many people and school papers claiming that Michelson-Morley does support SR as it implied that light travelled at a constant speed regardless of the frame of reference.
What I have regarded is that for an experiment to be evidence to support a theory, it’s aim must be testing the proof for that theory, e.g. Hafele-Keating experiment, however The Michelson-Morley experiment (MM) was intended to measure the velocity of the Earth relative to the “lumeniferous aether” which was at the time presumed to carry electromagnetic phenomena.
The result reported from MM was “the relative velocity of the Earth and the aether is probably less than one sixth the Earth's orbital velocity, and certainly less than one-fourth”. This result concludes that the apparatus wasn’t precise enough to obtain a true value for the speed through the aether. Hence, this result doesn’t prove that the speed of light is a constant in a vacuum no matter your frame of reference, therefore it cannot be evidence for Einstein’s postulate. This result could have been due to a number of things, MM’s reasoning, the aether simply not existing or the earth simply doesn't move through space being some of them. Just because special relativity can explain the results, does not make it proof.
I found this old question which I think should be in free-fall at the same energy level? [Example of each type of snack, or are they already too far underway for this to be especially true if you're trying to make an electromagnet stronger? Just curious if a strong ENSO changes the behavior of the electric field, causing heat, but how does the earth ever move or is it just correlation, not causation?
How would you calculate the average phase change and hence conclude the speed of the aether?
Hey guys, I was reading about the Michelson-Morley experiment, and how it contributed to the refusal of the of the Luminiferous Aether Theory. I got a little confused by the fact that the Maxwell had already published his theory of electromagnetism about 25 years prior to that experiment, because I also read that from his equations one can derive a wave in the electromagnetic field that perfectly described the way that light behaved, being a strong indicator that light was exactly that. So why keep trying to find another medium in which light propagated? Why wasn't the electromagnetic field as described by Maxwell's equations enough?
I understand the basic physics of the Michelson-Morley experiment, but what I cannot understand is how Michelson and Morely were certain that the results were not due to poor calibration. In particular, how could they have been certain that the results were not affected by differences between the length of the two distances that the split beams had to travel? Or, for that matter, the quality of the optics?
Source of Text: https://www.youtube.com/user/FractalWoman/community
Here is a question I get all the time. So, I thought I would put it here so that a I can reference it, next time I get asked this question.
Question: Did the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the Aether?
Answer: NOPE. They had the wrong model of the Aether. That is what went wrong. They disproved the WRONG model of the Aether. That is a good thing. My Aether model actually PREDICTS a NULL result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. I am glad that the MM-Experiment disproved THEIR Aether. It was wrong. We are NOT moving through a static Aether. We are at rest with respect to the Aether, ALWAYS. If we are moving, then Aether is moving. Matter follows Aether.
Here is an analogy. Take a stick and throw it into a moving river.
https://youtu.be/sA5WGvP8FUc
Very quickly, that stick will be at rest with respect to the water. The river will (very quickly) start moving the stick at the same speed that the river flowing. From the perspective of the stick, the water is not moving. If the stick did an EXPERIMENT (any experiment), to detect its motion with respect to the water, it would get a NULL result. According to the logic of the MM-Experiment, the stick should conclude that water does not exist.
THAT is why the Michelson-Morely experiment got a NULL result. A NULL result does NOT mean that the Aether doesn't exist. It means that we are at REST with respect to the Aether. That is all it means. All these years and all the endless repetitoin that the null result Michelson-Morely experiment meant that the Aether doesn't exist. THEY WERE WRONG.
Gnomesaying?
Source of Text: https://www.youtube.com/user/FractalWoman/community
Here is a question I get all the time. So, I thought I would put it here so that a I can reference it, next time I get asked this question.
Question: Did the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the Aether?
Answer: NOPE. They had the wrong model of the Aether. That is what went wrong. They disproved the WRONG model of the Aether. That is a good thing. My Aether model actually PREDICTS a NULL result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. I am glad that the MM-Experiment disproved THEIR Aether. It was wrong. We are NOT moving through a static Aether. We are at rest with respect to the Aether, ALWAYS. If we are moving, then Aether is moving. Matter follows Aether.
Here is an analogy. Take a stick and throw it into a moving river.
https://youtu.be/sA5WGvP8FUc
Very quickly, that stick will be at rest with respect to the water. The river will (very quickly) start moving the stick at the same speed that the river flowing. From the perspective of the stick, the water is not moving. If the stick did an EXPERIMENT (any experiment), to detect its motion with respect to the water, it would get a NULL result. According to the logic of the MM-Experiment, the stick should conclude that water does not exist.
THAT is why the Michelson-Morely experiment got a NULL result. A NULL result does NOT mean that the Aether doesn't exist. It means that we are at REST with respect to the Aether. That is all it means. All these years and all the endless repetitoin that the null result Michelson-Morely experiment meant that the Aether doesn't exist. THEY WERE WRONG.
Gnomesaying?
