Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to measure the motion of the Earth relative to the luminiferous aether, [A 1] ... Michelson and Morley's results. The ...
The results of the Michelson–Morley experiments supported Albert Einstein's strong postulate in 1905 that the speed of light is a constant in all inertial frames of reference for his Special Theory of Relativity. [2] Morley also collaborated with Dayton Miller on positive aether experiments after his work with Michelson. [2]
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.
Of particular interest was the possibility of "aether entrainment" or "aether drag", which would lower the magnitude of the measurement, perhaps enough to explain the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment. However, as noted earlier, aether dragging already had problems of its own, notably aberration.
The effects of special relativity can phenomenologically be derived from the following three fundamental experiments: [8] Michelson–Morley experiment, by which the dependence of the speed of light on the direction of the measuring device can be tested. It establishes the relation between longitudinal and transverse lengths of moving bodies.
Albert Abraham Michelson (surname pronunciation anglicized as Michael-son; December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931) was an American physicist known for his work on measuring the speed of light and especially for the Michelson–Morley experiment.
In addition, the negative result of the Michelson–Morley experiment led to the introduction of the hypothesis of length contraction in 1892. However, other experiments also produced negative results and (guided by Henri Poincaré 's principle of relativity ) Lorentz tried in 1899 and 1904 to expand his theory to all orders in v / c by ...
1932 – Kennedy–Thorndike experiment confirms the Lorentz transformations in a new way, complementary to the Michelson–Morley experiment. [31] These two results, if combined, prove some form of time dilation. 1932 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton prove the mass–energy equivalence via a nuclear reaction. 1933 – Dayton Miller ...