Re: Dayton Miller's Data have no Real Signal

Tom Roberts wrote:
> Title: Dayton Miller's Data have no Real Signal
> Author: Tom Roberts
> Date: December 8, 2005


Dear Tom Roberts,

Since I am the fellow who did the archive work which brought Miller's
Mt. Wilson data sheets to the light of day, stimulating a search at the
Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University where they were
finally located after being submerged for decades, and since I did so
much of the preliminary work rehabilitating Miller, probably I could
spot flaws in your argument where others might not.

Firstly, you can review my papers on the Miller ether-drift subject
here:

"Dayton Miller's Ether-Drift Experiments: A Fresh Look"
http://www.orgonelab.org/miller.htm

"A Dynamic and Substantive Cosmological Ether"
(from Galilean Electrodynamics)
http://www.orgonelab.org/DynamicEther.pdf

As to the specifics of your paper:

I note you cite Miller's 1933 paper, but nothing else aside from the
hit-piece authored by Shankland et al. There are dozens of papers
which bear upon these issues, including the positive replication
undertaken by Michelson using Miller's methodology on Mt. WIlson (the
Michelson-Pease-Pearson experiment), and the work of Yuri Galaev, among
others. Galaev's ether-drift experiments used both visible light and
radiowaves, and "confirmed Miller down to the details". And from
there, as I show, the sidereal-hour variations in Miller's
determinations match very precisely to Bernabei's determinations on
seasonal variations in "dark matter wind" -- another word for
ether-drift, in my view. So only from a superficial knowledge of this
issue, it appears there are quite a few scientists making nearly
identicial "systematic errors". It is one thing to claim, a guy with a
compass in his shaking hand can hardly tell where the needle is
pointing, but if he and a half-dozen others all point to the same
general location, in spite of shaking hands, it might pay to do more
than simply dismiss the issue. But there's other good reason to
dismiss your arguments, and retain clarity about Miller's work.

You evaluated Miller's August 1927 data set, but this is hardly
mentioned in his 1933 paper which you cited, and which is among his
most important ones on the subject. The 1933 paper covered a short
history of the ether-drift determinations, but primarily focused upon
his significant 1925-1926 experiments undertaken atop Mt. Wilson. The
Mt. Wilson experiments are what you should be discussing, not the
insignificant tests in Cleveland either before or after Mt. Wilson.
You proclaim, without evidence firstly that the direction of
ether-drift and velocity determinations were "not significantly better
than any other" direction or velocity -- this might be true for the
1927 data you examined. I have not seen it so cannot say. But it is
most definitely NOT the case for the 1925 and 1926 Mt. Wilson data,
which is what is presented in Miller's 1933 paper.

Those Cleveland experiments undertaken by Miller prior to Mt. Wilson
often were calibration tests, or experiments to evaluate different
materials for the base and composition of the interferometer, under
different thermal environments, and so on. It seems probable, the data
set you analyzed was another of those calibration tests. Again, the
graphs appearing in Millers 1933 paper were composed from his Mt.
Wilson experiments of 1925 and 1926, not from any data from Cleveland
in August 1927. Perhaps you can give a citation as to where you noted
some kind of graphs for the August 1927 data? I cannot recall any such
publication of Miller's post-Mt.Wilson data. After Mt. Wilson, he was
finished with the problem, felt he had nailed it down. Is it possible,
you have data sets from some of his students? I merely ask, because
there is no relevance to the data you undertook to re-analyze.

Shankland, et al, did their best to bury Miller's work forever. They
failed, as their approach was sloppy and showed an ignorance of how the
ether-drift experiments were undertaken. Both they and you ignored the
central issue of the needs for doing these experiments over different
times of year. Yes, you can point to one seasonal epoch and try to
argue that the systematic pattern in Miller's data is due to this or
that. Shankland dismissed the patterns as due to "temperature", but
without any proof as such. You say it is some kind of systematic
error. But firstly you don't look at Miller's most important data
sets, from Mt. Wilson. Even Shankland at least reviewed the correct
data sets, though he "cherry picked" only those data sheets by which he
could compose a verbal argument. Secondly, and more importantly,
neither the Shankland critique, nor your critique, addressed the
SYSTEMATIC SIDEREAL-DAY VARIATION IN THE AXIS OF ETHER-DRIFT, APPARENT
DURING ALL FOUR SEASONAL EPOCHS. The pattern was systematic, as MIller
noted repeatedly, as I show in my papers on Miller as well. When the
data are organized by civil-clock time, no pattern exists. When
organized by sidereal-clock (galactic) time, the pattern appears, and
is the same for all four epochs. There's simply no way you can use
math-arguments to overthrow such a pattern, especially since it has
already been confirmed by others.

The Cleveland experiments, pre-Mt.Wilson or post-Mt.Wilson, are not
significant for the question of ether-drift on a number of counts.
Firstly, as mentioned, they were mostly calibration experiments -- can
you cite a publication somewhere which reports on those post-Mt.Wilson
experiments in Cleveland? Are you sure you do not have, by some
accident, the data sheets from 1927 of Michelson-Pease-Pearson? ( If
so, I'd like to get a copy of them!) I would ask, where did you get
your set of Miller data sheets? The only ones I know about include the
full sets from Mt. Wilson, so it seems strange to me that you'd get
only the 1927 data sheets, but not the others from 1925 and 1926 -- I
searched both the Miller and Shankland Archives, plus materials from
Einstein's archives in Jerusalem, and found only one or two of his data
sheets. An unpublished interview with Shankland suggested he
(Shankland) had burned them. With that alarming possibility, I pushed
one of the Case Physics professors to undertake a search in some old
rooms where Miller's stuff had been stored for years, collecting dust
-- and he found them, turning them over to the Case Archive
department. I had copies made of the full data sets -- over 1000
pages. So how did you get possession of only the 1927 data?

As Miller wrote in his 1933 paper (p.228):

"More than half of [my 200,000] readings were made in the Mount Wilson
observations of 1925 and 1926. ... 12,800 single measures of the
velocity of ether-drift and 25,600 single determinations of the apex of
this motion."

These were in April, August and September of 1925, and February of
1926. NOT in August of 1927.

There is a reason why the Mt. Wilson experiments yielded good positive
results, and nearly all other such experiments did not -- it is because
the altitude of the experiment above sea-level influences the result,
due to Earth-entrainment (slowing down) of the Ether. I discuss this
fully in my papers, and so won't repeat it here. The original
Michelson-Morely experiment, the Morley-Miller experiments and the
Miller experiments outside of Mt. Wilson were all performed in
low-altitude Cleveland, often inside the stone structure of the Case
Physics building. The MM experiment also took place in a basement
location, and Miller demonstrated that only by going to higher
altitudes and also removing all dense materials at the light-beam path
-- the metal or heavy wood covers as used by so many others -- would
the ether-drift show itself more easily. Miller did the high-altitude
experiments and got a postive result. Same with
Michelson-Pease-Pearson, and a few others. Galaev more recently
confirmed it. How long will modern physics refuse to look at this
issue with open eyes and intelligent, fair-minded critique? Sorry to
say, Tom, your analysis is faulty on a number of levels, and does not
touch Miller's findings and conclusions anymore than the Shankland
hit-article did. It is a pity you did not consult with the advocates
of ether-drift prior to undertaking your analysis, as it could have
saved you a lot of time, and perhaps guided you to analyze the proper
set of data, from Mt. Wilson. But I still don't see how your method
can do more than point out the obvious, that the signal is often buried
in the noise. Lots of scientific problems suffer from this difficulty,
but progress nevertheless towards deeper understandings.

There is more which could be said, but it is late, and I'm sure you'll
have a reply to what's here already. I suggest firstly to review my
papers on the subject, so I won't necessarily be repeating myself.

Regards,

James DeMeo

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