Michelson-Morley experiment

The Michelson-Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether.

Measuring aether

Each year, the Earth travels a tremendous distance in its orbit around the sun, at a speed of around 30 km/second, over 100,000 km per hour. It was reasoned that the Earth would at all times be moving through the aether and producing a detectable "aether wind". At any given point on the Earth's surface, the magnitude and direction of the wind would vary with time of day and season. By analysing the effective wind at various different times, it should be possible to separate out components due to motion of the Earth relative to the Solar System from any due to the overall motion of that system.

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The effect of the aether wind on light waves would be like the effect of wind on sound waves. Sound waves travel at a constant speed relative to the medium that they are travelling through (this varies depending on the pressure, temperature etc (see Sound), but is typically around 340 m/s). So, if the speed of sound in our conditions is 340 m/s, when there is a 10 m/s wind relative to the ground, into the wind it will appear that sound is travelling at 330 m/s (340 - 10). Downwind, it will appear that sound is travelling at 350 m/s (340 + 10). Measuring the speed of sound compared to the ground in different directions will therefore enable us to calculate the speed of the air relative to the ground.

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If the speed of the sound cannot be directly measured, an alternative method is to measure the time that the sound takes to bounce off of a reflector and return to the origin. This is done parallel to the wind and perpendicular (since the direction of the wind is unknown before hand, just determine the time for several different directions). The cumulative round trip effects of the wind in the two orientations slightly favors the sound travelling at right angles to it. Similarly, the effect of an aether wind on a beam of light would be for the beam to take slightly longer to travel round-trip in the direction parallel to the "wind" than to travel the same round-trip distance at right angles to it.

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"Slightly" is key, in that, over a distance such as a few meters, the difference in time for the two round trips would be only about a millionth of a millionth of a second. At this point the only truly accurate measurements of the speed of light were those carried out by Albert Abraham Michelson, which had resulted in measurements accurate to a few meters per second. While a stunning achievement in its own right, this was certainly not nearly enough accuracy to be able to detect the aether.

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