7 ms·
I’d never heard of that… do you have an article about it so I can read up?
by goryramsy 2y ago
I’d never heard of that… do you have an article about it so I can read up?
- ioblomov 2y agoThe experiment disproved the existence of an ether by measuring that the speed of light was constant regardless of direction… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper... (And special relativity soon showed that if the speed of light is constant, then time itself must be variable.)
- kazinator 2y agoThe experiment disproved the existence of stationary aether; it didn't disprove the existence of an aether dragged by the Earth. Relativity is radical. If we interpret it through the concept and language aether, it says that when two observers traveling at different velocities briefly meet at the same time and place, they will each observe an aether that appears to be dragged with them. That is a contradiction: how can the aether be simultaneously dragged in multiple directions at the same spot? So there cannot be an aether. But there must be something else, all the new cruft contained in Relativity, like dilation of time and space.
- baxtr 2y ago>But there must be something else, all the new cruft contained in Relativity, like dilation of time and space. Why must there be something else?
- kazinator 2y agoTo explain why everyone's interferometer measures the same light speed regardless of its orientation, or their relative motion past the same point.
- baxtr 2y agoAh ok got it. Thought you were talking about something else entirely. Didn’t realize you meant the specialties of space-time in "special relativity".
- ithkuil 2y agoI believe GP refers to the fact that they set out to measure the speed of the earth relative to the aether only to discover there was no such thing.