Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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).
As an example in physics, the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment were of this type, as it did not detect the expected velocity relative to the postulated luminiferous aether. This experiment's famous failed detection, commonly referred to as the null result, contributed to the development of special relativity.
Box plot of data from the Michelson–Morley experiment displaying four outliers in the middle column, as well as one outlier in the first column. In statistics, an outlier is a data point that differs significantly from other observations.
The sample maximum and minimum are the least robust statistics: they are maximally sensitive to outliers.. This can either be an advantage or a drawback: if extreme values are real (not measurement errors), and of real consequence, as in applications of extreme value theory such as building dikes or financial loss, then outliers (as reflected in sample extrema) are important.
To clarify the situation, Michelson and Morley (1887) repeated Michelson's 1881 experiment, and they substantially increased the accuracy of the measurement. However, this now famous Michelson–Morley experiment again yielded a negative result, i.e., no motion of the apparatus through the aether was detected (although the Earth's velocity is ...
Eötvös experiment: Loránd Eötvös: Measurement Ratio between inertial and gravitational mass: 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment: Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley: Negative result Luminiferous aether: 1897 Thomson experiment: J. J. Thomson: Discovery Electron: 1901 Trouton–Noble experiment: Frederick Thomas Trouton and H. R. Noble ...
In the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment, the round trip distance that the two beams traveled down the precisely equal arms was expected to be made unequal because of the, now deprecated, idea that light is constrained to travel as a mechanical wave at the speed C only in the rest frame of the luminiferous aether.
Edward Williams Morley (January 29, 1838 – February 24, 1923) was an American scientist known for his precise and accurate measurement of the atomic weight of oxygen, and for the Michelson–Morley experiment.