C
cassini
Guest
Not quite accurate Logos, I never said anything about a ‘completely null’ result. That is an invention to get rid of ether.The experiment termed “M & M” revolved around the hypothesis that a universal medium called the “Aether (Ether)” existed. The experiment used the speed of light to test the existent of the aforementioned concept. The result, as you admit, was both famous and completely null. Because the speed of light went unaltered, the medium was essentially disproved. This conclusion is stated directly in the peer-reviewed paper following the experiment. Light does not need a medium to travel through, thus a new model for the Universe was necessary. Years were spent in the dark until Einstein gave his two cents, with some prodding from others, that led to the Theory of Relativity.
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The Null/Nill Fraud
‘As a test of relativity, however, the slightest apparent shift in the fringe would be of great moment…The results [of the M/M test] were seen as a ‘cloud’ in the otherwise clear sky of physics. Numerous explanations were put forward in an attempt to show how the existence of aether was compatible with the null result….
As they [Michelson/Morley/Miller] completed this work, Einstein’s papers were becoming recognised for what they were and setting the scene for the reinterpretation of the ‘null’ result as one of the most significant findings of experimental physics.’ —Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch: The Golem, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.38.
Collins and Pinch go on to confirm that a null interpreted as a nil was the foundation for Einstein’s papers. Einstein could then declare ether did not exist and postulate absolute motion and absolute rest cannot be detected by any experiment. Nearly a hundred years later the null/nill illusion is still bandied about here and there by revered physicists. Here is one version of the nil interpretation many will have read:
‘In 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley carried out a very careful experiment at the Case School for Applied Science in Cleveland. They compared the speed of light in the direction of the earth’s motion with that at right angles to the earth’s motion. To their surprise, they found they were exactly the same!’ — Stephen Hawking. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books, 1988, p.20.
In 1914, nine years after Einstein’s STR with its dependence on no ether came yet another empirical indication that ether may well exist.
‘M. G. Sagnac, a French scientist, mounted a light source, a set of mirrors and an interferometer on a spinning disc. He showed that the time for a light signal to traverse a closed path, in a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the disc, differed according to whether the signal travelled with or against the direction of spin. W.M. Macek & D.T.M. Davis (1963) confirmed the Sagnac effect to great accuracy, by repeating the experiment using ring lasers —A.G. Kelly: A New Theory on the Behaviour of Light, The Institution of engineers of Ireland, Feb. 1996, p.3.
According to Einstein then, ether does not exist. According to his theories of relativity it does not exist. But according to the results of experiments ether probably does exist. Here we have what they call in modern physics a ‘paradox’. In other words, there can be two truths, one necessary for Einstein’s theories of relativity and earthmoving, the other to keep modern physicists in their jobs. And as if this was not enough to send Einstein’s theories packing, Al Kelly tells us of another experimental falsification.
‘The A. Michelson & H.G. Gale test (1925) measured the effect of the rotation of the Earth on the behaviour of light. That test will be shown to conform with the Sagnac test, where the cross-section of the Earth, at the latitude of the tests, is considered to be a spinning disc. Recent ring-laser tests on a stationary circuit by H.R. Bilger et al, (1995), have also confirmed the M/G results with great accuracy.’ – (pp.3-4)
Here we have to disagree with Dr Kelly. We say such results do not necessarily confirm a rotation of the earth but only in the biased thinking of an entrenched Earthmover. The resistance found, could be caused by an inertial effect of a spinning universe around a static earth for example. But Kelly too had a theory of his own to ploy, he wanted to have his heliocentric cake and eat it.
‘In this paper, a theory is put forward that conforms to all of these tests. This theory states that light, generated upon the Earth, adopts to the orbital movement of the Earth, but not to the daily spin upon its axis.’ – (p.4)
Mr Kelly - who simply could not entertain the possibility that the M/M experiment could be interpreted geocentrically with an inertial field moving east/west around the earth, offers us a relativity goose having thrown out the relativity gander. Now while certainly falsifying Einstein out of empirical sight, Kelly’s own theory was as speculative as the one he was falsifying.
‘As the interferometer experiments came to be seen as a test of relativity, rather than measures of the velocity of the earth, what had been done appeared less than complete.’
So, in the early 1920s Miller - now obsessed with the quest to resolve this problem - rebuilt the interferometer, and in Sept. 1924 ‘found a persistent positive displacement’ and concluded, ‘the effects were shown to be real and systematic, beyond further question.’ Nevertheless, on and on went Miller, taking readings at different dates and various heights and at different venues. In 1925 Miller claimed that he had found an interference fringe of 10kps. This was still, of course, far short of the 30kps needed.
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