SPACE: aether (1 Viewer)

[Rahul]

do you write aether or ether?

on a more serious note, in the M-M experiment, what is the interferometer picking up?

the texts seem to suggest that one ray was expected to 'arrive first' and the interferometer.....or is that how i am interpreting it.

i think that the interferometer is picking up the change in the phase of the ray. if it travelled 'with aether', there would be a relative difference in the period of the ray. hence there would be discrepancies between the two rays.

thoughts?

 

[BlackJack]

Yes. Also, I prefer to write aether. You are indeed right, the interferometre is designed to show the interference from 2 beams of light. If light moved along the aether, then there would be change in the pattern as you rotate, from the changing path length.

 

[elizabethy]

when the entire apparatus was rotated thru 90 degrees , a change in interference pattern was expected ( if the aether did exist) , however no such shift was observed.......the interferometer was used to detect the change in interference.

 

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

aether.
there's a difference between phase - so they produce an interference pattern.
if you rotate it 90deg, then the phase change should differ (cuz the light ray against the aether would now be goin into the aether and vice versa) so the interference change should shift.

 

[haz_it_all]

definetely 'aether' looks smarter than 'ether' .........psh dumbass ether

 

[Dangar]

another vote for aether

 

[Rahul]

haha go aether

just another question regarding the rotatting of 90^o.

1. any differences in the phase of rays is noted during one 'run'. if none is noticed then, a difference would be expected upon a 90^o rotation.

2. the interference pattern is noticed for the first 'run', then it is compared to the intereference pattern noticed after 90^o of rotation. based on the aether model, a difference would be noticed.

i think that (1) is correct, am i right?

 

[Dangar]

I go for 2.

If the speed of light in both directions was identical, then the waves would return in phase and add constuctively. Any change in velocity would result in a change of phase of the 2 waves. But cos they didn't know the direction of the aether, when rotated by 90 degrees the interference pattern (which can be seen as a set of light and dark fringes) would be expected to shift slightly by about 0.4 of a fringe.

However no shift was noted; therefore no aether.
This is from Physics in Context

I think 1. would be wrong cos what if you had it set up at 30 degrees to the aether. Then there would be a difference in phase both times

 

[Rahul]

ok, makes sense