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Michelson and Morley created an improved version of the Michelson experiment with more than enough accuracy to detect this hypothetical effect. The experiment was performed in several periods of concentrated observations between April and July 1887, in the basement of Adelbert Dormitory of WRU (later renamed Pierce Hall, demolished in 1962).
The Michelson interferometer (among other interferometer configurations) is employed in many scientific experiments and became well known for its use by Michelson and Edward Morley in the famous Michelson–Morley experiment (1887) [1] in a configuration which would have detected the Earth's motion through the supposed luminiferous aether that ...
This means that as the interferometer's arms were spun to face into and against the aether wind, the vertical fringe lines should have moved across the viewer 0.4 fringe widths left and right for a total of 0.8 fringes from maximum to minimum. Michelson reported that only between one-sixth and one-quarter of the expected reading was found. [1]
In this theory, the reason that the Michelson–Morley experiment "failed" was that the apparatus contracted in length in the direction of travel. That is, the light was being affected in the "natural" manner by its travel through the aether as predicted, but so was the apparatus itself, cancelling out any difference when measured.
Michelson's null results performed in the basement of the Potsdam Observatory outside of Berlin (the horse traffic in the center of Berlin created too many vibrations), and his later more-accurate null results observed with Edward W. Morley at Case College in Cleveland, Ohio, contributed to the growing crisis of the luminiferous ether. Einstein ...
The timeline of luminiferous aether (light-bearing aether) or ether as a medium for propagating electromagnetic radiation begins in the 18th century. The aether was assumed to exist for much of the 19th century—until the Michelson–Morley experiment returned its famous null result.
Albert Abraham Michelson (surname pronunciation anglicized as Michael-son; December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931) was an American physicist known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for the Michelson–Morley experiment.
The Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887 had suggested that the hypothetical luminiferous aether, if it existed, was completely dragged by the Earth.To test this hypothesis, Oliver Lodge in 1897 proposed that a giant ring interferometer be constructed to measure the rotation of the Earth; a similar suggestion was made by Albert Abraham Michelson in 1904.