Talk:Michelson-Morley experiment

Where are the equations for the distances involved?

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Previous text stated that Michelson and Morley won Nobel Prize. Info does not appear on official Nobel site here:

http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/index.html

Any info?

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I wonder that there is not mentioned if Michelson-Morley experiment was originally executed in a vacuum, so it was executed in the air?

Does anyone know if there is any difference in results if the experiment is executed in the air or in a vacuum, so that the interference pattern does not change in either cases when rotating the Michelson interferometer? What about if the air is replaced with the water?

- TS

The original experiment was performed in air. Later versions of the experiment where performed at varying altitudes (to determine whether the aether might be being "dragged" around at the earth's surface), as well as in vacuum pumped tubes (1925); all gave essentially the same results. Chas zzz brown 23:39 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Is the experiment performed so that light beams go through water or other medium, in which speed of light is significantly smaller than in vacuum? What is the result? It is quite clear that if photons (or other information carriers) travel at speed << c in the apparatus, then null result must imply. But if all these lead to null result, M-M experiments with different mediums does not support the Special Theory of Relativity, they contradict it?

- TS

This isn't really the place to discuss this. Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not discussing the subject. A more appropriate forum would be the newsgroup sci.physics.relativity (news:sci.physics.relativity) - a newsgroup founded specifically for "Einstein was wrong" discussions. -- Tim Starling 11:49 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice. But if the name of the game is to improve the encyclopedia, it would be nice if there was a link or explanation of cases where the Michelson-Morley experiment is performed with various mediums (especially water) for light propagation.

- TS

You might find this (http://www.e-insite.net/ednmag/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA217670) helpful. -- Tim Starling 13:27 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

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The article is looking good. However, it should be noted that not all references made to the Aether in modern times refer to something solid enough to influence the speed of light in a wind-like fashion. Modern physics allows for the manipulation of "spacetime" which could be termed as a kind of aether. Light waves have to be travelling through something. Also a reference could be made to the evidence for photons as discrete particles, and the Dual Nature of Light.

What about the possibility that aether is massless and instantly accelerates to the speed of the source of the light waves? Have there been comparisons made with the speeds of light waves from differing sources?

One thing that should be borne in mind is the fact that all matter is made up of fields that themselves are limited to the speed of light. I have a suspicion that the phenomenon of inertia is caused by a simple short time lag in the reactions of these fields caused by temporarily altering their relative shapes. Thus the interchangability of time and space at high velocities.

Comment: According to the Maxwell's equations, light is waving of electromagnetic field around a charge. Thus electromagnetic field can be consider as the medium, or an aether, through which light propagates. Further, the speed of the light is c relative to this field.

--Luke Parrish Sept 21, 2003

Allegation that Relativity Theory has been disproved and replaced

New paper destroys relativity theory. For a copy of this astonishing article email:

paulanevill@fsmail.net

or write to:

Paul Anthony Nevill 7 Little Southsea Street Southsea Portsmouth Hampshire PO5 3DD UK

Again this isn't really the place to discuss this. Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not discussing the subject. A more appropriate forum would be the newsgroup sci.physics.relativity (news:sci.physics.relativity) - a newsgroup founded specifically for "Einstein was wrong" discussions.

Swimmer in current

Rewrote:

The effect of the aether wind on light waves would be like the effect of a strong current in a river on a swimmer who is moving at a constant speed back and forth between two points, one upstream, the other downstream. If the second point were directly upstream of the first, the swimmer would be slowed by the current on the way from the first to the second and, similarly, sped up on return. The cumulative round trip effects of the current in the two orientations slightly favors the swimmer 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.

Sound waves are much closer to the physics of the Michelson-Morely experiment (since they always travel in a constant speed relative to the medium). I rewrote the section to use them instead of a swimmer, since it makes it more obvious why physicists believed there was an ether wind. Jrincayc 17:51, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Definition of 'Fringe'

May I request an edit please that defines/links fringe in:

Michelson-Morley experiment 1.. 2 The experiment 3.. 4.. 5.. 6..

"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".

I tried a search for the work "fringe" but found definitions out of context (hair style, Edinburgh Festival, fabric edge).

Right. I think what is needed is a minor edit to the "interference" page and a link to that. The interference page, incidentally, has a very pretty diagram of patterns caused by circular waves but does not at present have the one most commonly needed: ordinary inteference in the double-slit context. This kind is the one needed to understand interferometers.

Caroline Thompson 10:21, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)