Michelson and Morley or NOT?! (1 Viewer)

[BlackDragon]

The michelson and morley experiment is easy to understand. and as most people say it thoroughly supports einsteins theories. HOWEVER, because einsteins theories state that the speed of light will be constant regardless of the frame of reference it is viewed from, wouldn't this mean that even if the ether existed, the beam travelling perpendicular to the ether "current" or "wind" would arrive at the same time to the other anyway? SO, instead of the m&m experiment supporting einstein, wouldn't einstein have completely removed the basis for their experiment, thus proving the "null" result invalid? in this way..the ether could theoretically still exist?

can someone explain that? cause you know, i doubt i have just proved the most famous experiment in a LONG time wrong. right?

 

[Libbster]

yes the aether could still theoretically exist, but it has no effect of the speed of light so we mainly disregard the idea of the aether.

 

[acullen]

No, this is because the interferometer in the Michelson and Morley experiment merely tested interference patterns for light travelling over an equal distance but with the aparatus rotated at different angles. If the ether did exist, light would had to have acted mechanically in nature (and thus a medium through which to propogate). If the earth itself was moving through the ether, the motion of the ether relative to the aparatus would have changed the intereference patterns noticed. It was the experiment itself that made way for Einstein's constancy of the speed of light (since there is no relative velocity of a medium to disrupt anything).

 

[+:: $i[Q]u3 ::+]

Erm, I am not sure of what you are saying but I think you've used your conclusion to disprove your initial theory... (???)

You've probably been through this, but you can't ever prove that something doesn't exist. Einstein did not prove that the ether didn't exist. For all we know, it might. The point is, the MM experiment showed that c remains constant regardless of reference frame, hence the ether theory is irrelevent. The significance of the MM experiment was not in disproving the ether theory, but in showing that the ether theory was UNNECESSARY, as c is constant in all reference frames.

 

[ogmzergrush]

Erm, I am not sure of what you are saying but I think you've used your conclusion to disprove your initial theory... (???)

You've probably been through this, but you can't ever prove that something doesn't exist. Einstein did not prove that the ether didn't exist. For all we know, it might. The point is, the MM experiment showed that c remains constant regardless of reference frame, hence the ether theory is irrelevent. The significance of the MM experiment was not in disproving the ether theory, but in showing that the ether theory was UNNECESSARY, as c is constant in all reference frames.

I fully endorse this line of thinking, hit the nail right on the head!