Michelson-Morley experiment
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The Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether.
Physics theory of the late 19th century postulated that, as water waves must have a medium to move across (water), and audible sound waves require a medium to move through (air), light waves require a medium, the "luminiferous aether". The speed of light being so great, designing an experiment to detect the presence and properties of this aether took considerable thought.
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Measuring aether
Each year, the Earth travels a tremendous distance in its orbit around the sun, at a speed of around 30 km/second, over 100,000 km per hour. It was reasoned that the Earth would at all times be moving through the aether and producing a detectable "aether wind". At any given point on the Earth's surface, the magnitude and direction of the wind would vary with time of day and season. By analysing the effective wind at various different times, it should be possible to separate out components due to motion of the Earth relative to the Solar System from any due to the overall motion of that system.
The effect of the aether wind on light waves would be like the effect of wind on sound waves. Sound waves travel at a constant speed relative to the medium that they are traveling through (this varies depending on the pressure, temperature etc (see Sound), but is typically around 340 m/s). So, if the speed of sound in our conditions is 340 m/s, when there is a 10 m/s wind relative to the ground, into the wind it will appear that sound is traveling at 330 m/s (340 - 10). Downwind, it will appear that sound is traveling at 350 m/s (340 + 10). Measuring the speed of sound compared to the ground in different directions will therefore enable us to calculate the speed of the air relative to the ground.
If the speed of the sound cannot be directly measured, an alternative method is to measure the time that the sound takes to bounce off of a reflector and return to the origin. This is done parallel to the wind and perpendicular (since the direction of the wind is unknown before hand, just determine the time for several different directions). The cumulative round trip effects of the wind in the two orientations slightly favors the sound travelling at right angles to it. Similarly, the effect of an aether wind on a beam of light would be for the beam to take slightly longer to travel round-trip in the direction parallel to the "wind" than to travel the same round-trip distance at right angles to it.
"Slightly" is key, in that, over a distance such as a few meters, the difference in time for the two round trips would be only about a millionth of a millionth of a second. At this point the only truly accurate measurements of the speed of light were those carried out by Albert Abraham Michelson, which had resulted in measurements accurate to a few meters per second. While a stunning achievement in its own right, this was certainly not nearly enough accuracy to be able to detect the aether.
The experiment
Michelson, though, had already seen a solution to this problem. His design, later known as an interferometer, sent a single source of monochromatic light through a half-silvered mirror that was used to split it into two beams travelling at right angles to one other. After leaving the splitter, the beams travelled out to the ends of long arms where they were reflected back into the middle on small mirrors. They then recombined on the far side of the splitter in an eyepiece, producing a pattern of constructive and destructive interference based on the length of the arms. Any slight change in the amount of time the beams spent in transit would then be observed as a shift in the positions of the interference fringes. If the aether were stationary relative to the sun, then the Earth's motion would produce a shift of about 0.04 fringes.
Michelson had made several measurements with an experimental device in 1881, in which he noticed that the expected shift of 0.04 was not seen, and a smaller shift of about 0.02 was. However his apparatus was a prototype, and had experimental errors far too large to say anything about the aether wind. For this measurement a much more accurate and tightly controlled experiment would have to be carried out. It was, however, successful in demonstrating that the basic apparatus was feasible.
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He then combined forces with Edward Morley and spent a considerable amount of time and money creating an improved version with more than enough accuracy to detect the drift. In their experiment the light was repeatedly reflected back and forth along the arms, increasing the path length to 11m. At this length the drift would be about 1/6th of a fringe. To make that easily detectable the apparatus was located in a closed room in the basement of a stone building, eliminating most thermal and vibrational effects. Vibrations were further reduced by building the apparatus on top of a huge block of marble, which was then floated in a pool of mercury. They calculated that effects of about 1/100th of a fringe would be detectable.
The mercury pool allowed the device to be turned, so that it could be rotated through the entire range of possible angles to the "aether wind". Even over a short period of time some sort of effect would be noticed simply by rotating the device, such that one arm rotated into the direction of the wind and the other away. Over longer periods day/night cycles or yearly cycles would also be easily measurable.
The most famous failed experiment
Ironically, after all this thought and preparation, the experiment became what might be called the most famous failed experiment to date. Instead of providing insight into the properties of the aether, it produced none of the effects to be expected if the Earth's motion produced an "aether wind". Although a small "velocity" was measured, it was far too small to be used as evidence of aether, did not seem to vary in a day/night or seasonal pattern, and was within the range of experimental error that meant the speed might actually be zero. The apparatus behaved as if there were no wind at all—as if the Earth had no motion with reference to a medium.
Although Michelson and Morley went on to different experiments after their first publication in 1887, both remained active in the field. Other versions of the experiment were carried out with increasing sophistication. Kennedy and Illingsworth both modified the mirrors to include a half-wave "step", eliminating the possibility of some sort of standing wave pattern within the apparatus. Illingsworth could detect changes on the order of 1/300th of a fringe, Kennedy up to 1/1500th. Miller later built a non-magnetic device to eliminate magnetostriction, while Michelson built one of non-expanding invar to eliminate any remaining thermal effects. Others from around the world increased accuracy, eliminated possible side effects, or both. All of these also returned the "null" result.
- It is important to understand the term "null result". This does not imply "zero", but "not what we expected". The aether theories predicted a drift speed equivalent to the motion of the Earth, about 30km/s, but the various MM experiments showed effects at least ten times less. More modern experiments have reduced this to under 1/30th km/s, one-thousand times.
Morley was not convinced of his own results, and went on to conduct additional experiments with Dayton Miller. Miller worked on increasingly large experiments, culminating in one with a 32m (effective) arm length at an installation at the Mount Wilson observatory. To avoid the possibility of the aether wind being blocked by solid walls, he used a special shed with thin walls, mainly of canvas. He consistently measured a small positive effect with a seasonal cycle, which he attributed to aether entrainment (see below). However the effect was still much smaller than classical theories had predicted, by about 50 times. He remained convinced this was due to partial entrainment, though he did not attempt an explanation.
Though Kennedy later also carried out an experiment at Mount Wilson, finding 1/10 the drift measured by Miller, and no seasonal effects, Miller's findings were considered important at the time, and were discussed by Michelson, Lorentz and others at a meeting reported in 1928 (ref below). There was general agreement that more experimentation was needed to check Miller's results. Lorentz recognised that the results, whatever their cause, did not quite tally with either his or Einstein's versions of special relativity. Einstein was not present at the meeting and felt the results could be dismissed as experimental error (see Shankland ref below).
| Name | Year | Arm length (meters) | Fringe shift expected | Fringe shift measured | Experimental Resolution | Upper Limit on Vaether |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michelson | 1881 | 1.2 | 0.04 | 0.02 | ||
| Michelson and Morley | 1887 | 11.0 | 0.4 | < 0.01 | 8 km/s | |
| Morley and Morley | 1902–1904 | 32.2 | 1.13 | 0.015 | ||
| Miller | 1921 | 32.0 | 1.12 | 0.08 | ||
| Miller | 1923–1924 | 32.0 | 1.12 | 0.03 | ||
| Miller (Sunlight) | 1924 | 32.0 | 1.12 | 0.014 | ||
| Tomascheck (Starlight) | 1924 | 8.6 | 0.3 | 0.02 | ||
| Miller | 1925–1926 | 32.0 | 1.12 | 0.088 | ||
| Kennedy (Mt Wilson) | 1926 | 2.0 | 0.07 | 0.002 | ||
| Illingworth | 1927 | 2.0 | 0.07 | 0.0002 | 0.0006 | 1 km/s |
| Piccard and Stahel (Rigi) | 1927 | 2.8 | 0.13 | 0.006 | ||
| Michelson et al. | 1929 | 25.9 | 0.9 | 0.01 | ||
| Joos | 1930 | 21.0 | 0.75 | 0.002 |
In recent times versions of the MM experiment have become commonplace. Lasers and masers amplify light by repeatedly bouncing it back and forth inside a carefully tuned cavity, thereby inducing atoms in the cavity to decay and give off more light. The result is an effective path length of kilometers. Better yet, the light emitted in one cavity can be used to start the same cascade in another set at right angles, thereby creating an interferometer of extreme accuracy.
The first such experiment was led by Charles H. Townes, one of the co-creators of the first maser. Their 1958 experiment put an upper limit on drift, including any possible experimental errors, of only 30 m/s. In 1974 a repeat with accurate lasers in the triangular Trimmer experiment reduced this to 0.025 m/s, and included tests of entrainment by placing one leg in glass. In 1979 the Brillet-Hall experiment put an upper limit of 30 m/s for any one direction, but reduced this to only 0.000001 m/s for a two-direction case (ie, still or partially entrained aether). A year long repeat known as Hils and Hall, published in 1990, reduced this to 2x10-13.
Fallout
This result was rather astounding and not explainable by the then-current theory of wave propagation in a static aether. Several explanations were attempted, among them, that the experiment had a hidden flaw (apparently Michelson's initial belief), or that the Earth's gravitational field somehow "dragged" the aether around with it in such a way as locally to eliminate its effect. Miller would have argued that, in most if not all experiments other than his own, there was little possibility of detecting an aether wind since it was almost completely blocked out by the laboratory walls or by the apparatus itself. Be this as it may, the idea of a simple aether, what became known as the First Postulate, had been dealt a serious blow.
A number of experiments were carried out to investigate the concept of aether dragging, or entrainment. The most convincing was carried out by Hamar, who placed one arm of the interferometer between two huge lead blocks. If aether were dragged by mass, the blocks would, it was theorised, have been enough to cause a visible effect. Once again, no effect was seen.
Walter Ritz's emitter theory (or ballistic theory), was also consistent with the results of the experiment, not requiring aether, more intuitive and paradox-free. This became known as the Second Postulate. However it also led to several "obvious" optical effects that were not seen in astronomical photographs, notably in observations of binary stars in which the light from the two stars could be measured in an interferometer.
The Sagnac experiment placed the MM apparatus on a constantly rotating turntable. In doing so any ballistic theories such as Ritz's could be tested directly, as the light going one way around the device would have different length to travel than light going the other way (the eyepiece and mirrors would be moving toward/away from the light). In Ritz's theory there would be no shift, because the net velocity between the light source and detector was zero (they were both mounted on the turntable). However in this case an effect was seen, thereby eliminating any simple ballistic theory. This fringe-shift effect is used today in laser gyroscopes.
Another possible solution was found in the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction. In this theory all objects physically contract along the line of motion relative to the aether, so while the light may indeed transit slower on that arm, it also ends up travelling a shorter distance that exactly cancels out the drift.
In 1932 the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment modified the Michelson-Morley experiment by making the path lengths of the split beam unequal, with one arm being very long. In this version the two ends of the experiment were at different velocities due to the rotation of the earth, so the contraction would not "work out" to exactly cancel the result. Once again, no effect was seen.
Ernst Mach was among the first physicists to suggest that the experiment actually amounted to a disproof of the aether theory. The development of what became Einstein's special theory of relativity had the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction derived from the invariance postulate, and was also consistent with the apparently null results of most experiments (though not, as was recognised at the 1928 meeting, with Miller's observed seasonal effects). Today relativity is generally considered the "solution" to the MM null result.
The Trouton-Noble experiment is regarded as the electrostatic equivalent of the Michelson-Morley optical experiment, though whether or not it can ever be done with the necessary sensitivity is debatable.
References
- A. A. Michelson and E.W. Morley, Philos. Mag. S.5, 24 (151), 449-463 (1887), [1] (http://www.aip.org/history/gap/PDF/michelson.pdf)
- A. A. Michelson et al., Conference on the Michelson-Morley Experiment, Astrophysical Journal 68, 341 (1928)
- Robert S. Shankland et al., New Analysis of the Interferometer Observations of Dayton C. Miller, Reviews of Modern Physics, 27(2):167-178, (1955)
- James DeMeo, Critical Review of the Shankland et al Analysis of Dayton Miller’s Aether-Drift Experiments (http://www.orgonelab.org/miller.htm), (2000)
External links
- Interferometers Used in Aether Drift Experiments From 1881-1931 (http://carnap.umd.edu/phil250/aether_drift/interferometers.html)
- Early Experiments (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#2.%20early%20experiments)
- Modern Michelson-Morley Experiment improves the best previous result by 2 orders of magnitude, from 2003 (http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v91/e020401)
See also
de:Michelson-Morley-Experiment es:Experimento Michelson-Morley fr:Expérience de Michelson-Morley it:Esperimento di Michelson-Morley ja:マイケルソン・モーレーの実験 sv:Michelson-Morleys experiment vi:Thí nghiệm Michelson-Morley zh-cn:迈克耳逊－莫雷实验