The Michelson-Morley experiment

Hendrik Lorentz indicated that the Galilean transformation represents only one possibility of making the apparent forces vanish, i.e. assuring that A = D. Both constants need not be equal to 1. As it happens that such a generalization is forced by an intriguing experiment performed in 1887. 

Michelson and Morley were interested in whether the speed of light differs, when measured in two laboratories moving with respect to one another. According to the Galilean transformation, the two velocities of light should be different, in the same way as the speed of train passengers (measured with respect to the platform) 

Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928), Dutch scientist, professor at Leiden. Lorentz was very close to formulating the special theory of relativity. 

Albert Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist, professor in Cleveland and Chicago, USA. He specialized in the precise measurements of the speed of light. 

His older colleague Edward Williams Mor-ley was American physicist and chemist, professor of chemistry at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA. 

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The question of the possible existence of a nonzero photon rest mass was raised by Einstein [42], Bass and Schrodinger [43], de Broglie and Vigier [44], and further by Evans and Vigier [5], among others. It includes such crucial points as the relation to the Michelson-Morley experiment, and the so far undetermined value of such a mass and its experimental determination. 

Consequently, there should be no noticeable departure in recorded velocity from the Michelson-Morley experiments when the photon rest mass is changed from zero to about 10-39 kg = 10 9me or less. For a photon rest mass in the range... 

Albert Michelson developed the interferometer about 1880 and conducted the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, in which it was found that the speed of light is independent of the motion of the source and the observer, this crucial experiment led Einstein to the theory of relativity. Michelson also used the interferometer to create the predecessor of today s length standard based on the wavelength of light. He received the Nobel Prize in 1907 for precision optical instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid. ... 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were several isolated voices claiming for a revision of the Michelson-Morley interpretation. Hicks [52] performed a theoretical analysis of the Michelson-Morley experiment and concluded that data were consistent with a somewhat larger magnitude of the difference of speeds. More importantly, he noted that the data followed a periodic curve proportional to cos 20, where angle 0 refers to a rotation of the interferometer relative to the presumed direction of orbital velocity. The functional dependence present in the results is of the form to be expected if there existed E. 

The photon model here refers to a photon at rest in E. The four theories just mentioned are compatible with Eq. (101). Detailed predictions of each theory are different, so that crucial tests may be designed and carried out. For instance, the Michelson-Morley experiment is conventionally interpreted as a demonstration of Einsteinian relativity, but the evidence is not convincing, as discussed in Section II. Another example, to discriminate between relativistic theories (1) and (2) and emission theories (3) and (4), it is necessary to measure with high precision the velocity of photons with energy higher than 100 keV. 

Naturally this coincidence does not mean that the geometric optics added to the classical physics could be used for the exact description of the light propagation since the Michelson-Morley experiment refuted its validity forever. It is evident that there are possible new mathematical definitions for c+ and c instead of the ordinary speed addition mle of the classical physics seen in Eqs. (9) and (11). These can be compatible with the experimental results as well. 

In the spirit of the standing-wave picture of Sagnac-type experiments, this theory needs to recalculate the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment as well. In the M-M experiment there is a new unknown hidden parameter cp, which denotes the speed of light in the direction perpendicular to the earth s velocity. The traveled path of light in the perpendicular arm Xp = 2Tcp [dim X = meter], [where cp is speed of light perpendicular to the velocity... 

The Michelson-Morley experiment is a perfect example of a null experiment, one in which something that was expected to happen is not observed. The consequences of their observations for the development of physics were profound. Having proven that there could be no stationary ether, physicists tried to advance new theories that would save the ether concept. Michelson himself suggested that the ether might move, at least near the Earth. Others studied the possibility that rigid objects might actually contract as they traveled. But it was Einstein s theory of special relativity that finally explained their results. 

The significance of the Michelson-Morley experiment was not assimilated by the scientific community until after Einstein presented his theory. In fact, when Michelson was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1907, the first American to receive that honor, it was for his measurements of the standard meter using his interferometer. The ether wind experiment was not mentioned... 

There has also been some controversy as to how the experiment affected the development of special relativity. Einstein commented that the experiment had only a negligible effect on the formulation of his theory. Clearly it was not a starting point for him. Yet the experiment has been repeated by others over many years, upholding the original results in every case. Even if special relativity did not spring directly from its results, the Michelson-Morley experiment has convinced many scientists of the accuracy of Einstein s theory and has remained one of the foundations upon which relativity stands. 

Luminiferous ether—hypothetical medium proposed to explain the propagation of light. The Michelson-Morley experiment made it necessary to abandon this hypothesis. 

Today, interferometers are used widely in the alignment system of lithographic exposure tools for coordinating the movement of the exposure stage. In particular, they have found application in high-precision measurements of extremely small distances, between different objects in the exposure tool. Furthermore, interferometric lithography owes its very existence to the Michelson-Morley experiment. 

Einstein takes Maxwell s electromagnetic theory as the starting point of his analysis. He does not make any reference to the Michelson Morley experiment. 

Here, we consider as an example a possible problem with an interpretation of a classical version of the Michelson-Morley experiment. In the experiment some pieces of bulk matter were rotated. It was expected that when rotating their linear scale would not change and comparing the light propagation in different arms of the interferometer we can judge whether the speed of light is the same in different directions. 

While a natural microscopic picture involves an effective external field, the natural macroscopic description is rather a kind of dilute medium (e.g., for the dark matter) which weakly interacts with light etc. It is not the ether The dilute medium obviously affects the Doppler effect, etc., and produces a signal for the Michelson-Morley experiment. The speed of light would not be a imiversal c. However, for microscopic properties such as a value of mc as the rest energy that would be different. Either they would have no relation to measured velocity of light in the media, or there would be different changes. 

The crucial poinf here is a possible scale of the effects. The Michelson-Morley experiment and some others are of macroscopic nature and they can check various symmetries on a large scale with respect to atomic and particle effects scale. The latter scale could be studied via a different kind of experiments and it is not necessary that the result be consistent. 

The Vanishing of Apparent Forces The Galilean Transformation The Michelson-Morley Experiment The Galilean Transformation Crashes The Lorentz Transformation New Law of Adding Velocities The Minkowski Space-Time Continuum How do we Gel E =... 

The Michelson-Morley experiment has shown that each of the observers will note that in the partner s laboiatoy, there is a contraction of the dimensicm pointing to the partner. As a consequence, there is a time dilation i.e.. each of the observers will note that time flows slower in the partner s laboratory. 

The Michelson-Morley experiment has shown that when an observer in the coordinate system O measures a length in O (and both coordinate systems fly apart v = —u), then he obtains... 

It was proposed independently by Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928) and George Fitzgerald (1851-1901) in 1892 to account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The contraction was given a theoretical background in Einstein s special theory of relativity. In this theory, an object of length lo at rest in one frame of reference will appear, to an observer in another frame moving with relative velocity v with respect to the first, to have length Ua-i /a,... 

J. Stavek Diffusion action of chemical waves Apeiron 10(2003)183, Diffusion of individual Brownian particles through Young s double-slits Apeiron 11(2004)175 and Diffusion of self-organized Brownian particles in the Michelson-Morley experiment Apeiron 11(2004)373... 

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