Re: Michelson-Morley: Much ado about nil

cafeinst@xxxxxxx wrote:
Has anyone read this paper?

http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2006/PP-06-10.PDF

It claims that the Michelson-Morley experiment doesn't really prove
that there is no absolute continuum. Any comments about it? It seems to
me to be very surprising. His argument is not very complicated; I'd
like to hear the opinions of the experts on this.

Thank you,
Craig


His arguments are summarized in this statement:
<<
It has been shown above that if the source of light and the
mirror are moving together with the same velocity relative
to the resting medium, then the Doppler effect is strictly
equal to zero. This means that no Doppler effect can be
detected from an experiment in which the emitter and the
mirror are moving together through a quiescent continuum.
This means that a nil effect from the celebrated experiment of
Michelson and Morley should be interpreted as an evidence
about the existence of a material continuum at rest and
that this absolute continuum is not entrained by the moving
bodies.
>>

Of course there is no frequency difference between
the emitter and the mirror.
But this obvious triviality is utterly irrelevant,
and is no argument for the nil result at all.
An interferometer doesn't compare frequencies, it compares phases.
So the relevant question is: does the phase difference between
the source and the mirror depend on the speed through the medium?
It obviously does. The phase relationship between the source
and the mirror depends on the number of wavelengths between them.
And the wave in the medium is Doppler shifted relative to
the source by an amount depending on the speed. This means
that the wavelength, and thus the number of wavelengths between
the source and the mirror depend on the speed.

Michelson's analysis of 1887 was correct.
But it is amazing how many cranks there are who come up
with "a new analysis of the MMX", proving that the MMX
would give a nil result even if Michelson's ether
existed.

Have these people no self criticism? Don't they wonder
why what they think they have discovered has been
unnoticed by everybody else for more than a century?

Paul
.

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