Re: How to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment without SR?


"Uncle Ben" <ben@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Jul 10, 12:57 pm, "Androcles" <Headmas...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Uncle Ben" <b...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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| How does the anti-Einstein crowd explain the famous Michelson-Morley
| experiment?
|
| Just to refresh memories, they looked for the ether, trying to measure
| the velocity of the earth through it. Their interferometer floated on
| the suface of a tank to eliminate vibrations. They tried during
| different times of the year, when the motion of the earth around the
| sun was going in opposite directions relative to the stars. And they
| tried just rotating the interferometer. The sensitivity of the
| interferometer was such that they should have been able to detect
| motion at a small fraction of the speed of light.
|
| They never did find any evidence of motion through the ether.
| Conclusion: Either a) the luminiferous ether that fills all space and
| transmits light to us from the stars is fixed to a floating
| interferometer in a tank in the basement of Adelbert Hall at Western
| Reserve University, or b) there is no ether, or c) galillean
| relativity is wrong, or some combination of these ideas.
|
| Einstein proposed (independently of this experiment,which he learned
| about later) answer c), and that if there is an ether, it is so clever
| at hiding from us that we can never detect it.
|
| What do the anti-relativity folk have to say about this experiment?

This:
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mmx4dummies.htm
and this:
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Sagnac/Sagnac.htm
and this:
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Algol/Algol.htm
and this:
http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Orbit/Orbit.htm

You've a lot of catching up to do.

Yes, I'm sure I have a lot of catching up to do.

Your first link is right on point. But I'm having a bit of trouble
following your argument.

You show four nicely animated figures. We have one interferometer
moving with the earth through the ether with one set of observers.

===============================================
What aether? What set? In every case the eye at the bottom remains
fixed relative to the source at the left.
===============================================

Suppose that they are all moving w.r.t. the ether as in your diagram
at top right.
===============================================
What aether?
===============================================

If the light paths are of unequal length,
===============================================
What "if"?
The path lengths are equal, I was careful to draw them that way.


why don't
they observe a fringe shift as they change the direction of motion (by
rotating the interferometer) and the difference in path length
changes?

===============================================
They do if you change the path length. Michelson fitted a screw thread
that moves the mirror to change the path length.
(Shown top left where the red ray reflects - there are four fixed mirrors
at three locations and at the fourth location there is one adjustable mirror
with three fixed. The adjustable mirror is beside the eyepiece.)

When Michelson got the interference set up how he wanted it he then
turned the granite block through 90 degrees (it is resting on wood which
is floating on mercury) and that makes the supposed aether wind change
direction. If there were any aether that would affect the interference
pattern,
but that doesn't happen. Conclusion: No aether wind.

No aether needed, no SR needed.
Then in 1913 Sagnac repeated it, but arranged for the whole thing to
turn at a constant rate. Because he couldn't run around he put a
photographic
plate at the eyepiece and photograph the fringe shift, thus PROVING
beyond doubt there is no aether.

It's really quite simple. Light behaves like a bullet from a gun.
So...
100 years later we have a very simple idea that is very difficult for
indoctrinated minds to understand. Ockham's razor wins again.
If you were not so insistent that light is a wave you'd see it straight
away.


.

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