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Complete aether dragging can explain the negative outcome of all aether drift experiments (like the Michelson–Morley experiment). However, this theory is considered to be wrong for the following reasons: [1] [11] The Fizeau experiment (1851) indicated only a partial entrainment of light.
The Lorentz ether theory, which was developed mainly between 1892 and 1906 by Lorentz and Poincaré, was based on the aether theory of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Maxwell's equations and the electron theory of Rudolf Clausius. [B 1] Lorentz's 1895 paper rejected the aether drift theories, and refused to express assumptions about the nature of the ...
Experiments such as the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887 (and later other experiments such as the Trouton–Noble experiment in 1903 or the Trouton–Rankine experiment in 1908), presented evidence against the theory of a medium for light propagation known as the luminiferous aether; a theory that had been an established part of science for nearly one hundred years at the time.
The hypothesis of aether drift implies that because one of the arms would inevitably turn into the direction of the wind at the same time that another arm was turning perpendicularly to the wind, an effect should be noticeable even over a period of minutes.
Hendrik Lorentz and George Francis FitzGerald offered, within the framework of Lorentz ether theory, an explanation of how the Michelson–Morley experiment could have failed to detect motion through the aether. However, the initial Lorentz theory predicted that motion through the aether would create a birefringence effect, which Rayleigh and ...
In 1845 Stokes showed that complete aether drag could also explain it. Since Fresnel had no model to explain partial drag, scientists favored Stokes explanation. [S 4] According to the Stokes' hypothesis, the speed of light should be increased or decreased when "dragged" along by the water through the aether frame, dependent upon the direction.
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The mirror system reflected the light back into the interferometer. If there were an aether drift, it would produce a phase shift and a change in the interference that would be detected. However, no phase shift was ever found. The negative outcome of the Michelson–Morley experiment left the concept of aether (or its drift) undermined. There ...