| Michelson And Morely |
Aether
Michelson & Morely performed the most famous experiments involving relative movement. In the 1800s, physicists believed in an ether - a medium through which light propagated. Light was a wave, and just as water needs to exist to allow waves to roll through the ocean, there must be some substance that allow light waves to move throughout the universe.
The idea of the experiment was very simple: to show the existence of ether. If ether exists, the earth travels through the universe full of ether. As the earth moves through that ether, light on the earth must change its speed depending on whether the earth is moving with or against the ether "wind", much like the "Doppler effect" which makes sound change pitch as it passes a stationary observer.
Michelson and Morely set up an experiment to measure the speed of light in any direction. A very sensitive measuring device was constructed on a rotating platform and measurements were taken in all directions. The results were unexpected: light speed was measured as the same value in all directions. Michelson even improved his experiment and performed it over and over form many years, but with the same results.
This result is still hotly debated today...
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| Storm In Physics (2005) |
2nd book published by Dr. Carezani.
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