Michelson and Morley and later scientists repeated the experiment many times, and in many different horizontal axial positions and configurations, at different times of the day, all with a null result. Was that the Earth was standing still, which meant scuttling the whole Copernican theory and was unthinkable. For there seemed to be only three alternatives. “ The problem which now faced science was considerable. In other words, the experiment failed to detect the Earth moving in or against space, of whatever space was understood to consist.Īfter the famous Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887, one of Albert Einstein's biographers, Ronald W. Michelson and Morley found that a light beam discharged horizontally in the direction of the Earth’s assumed motion showed virtually no difference in speed from a light beam discharged north to south or south to north. The earth did not measurably move around the sun at all, in contradiction to all expectations and the accepted astronomical model. The shocking result of this experiment is that light did travel with the same velocity in the various horizontal directions tested. Morley wrote to his father that the purpose of the experiment was “to see if light travels with the same velocity in all directions.” 1 The goal of the Michelson–Morley experiment was to compare the speed of light in perpendicular horizontal directions at various times of the day, in an attempt to detect the relative motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous aether by using the earth's motion around the sun to create interference bands of light for the study. This background medium of space was colloquially known as 'aether' (See: Aether). Unfortunately, a number of writers on this topic tend to gloss over, or sometimes mischaracterize, what this experiment demonstrated, its significance, and how it was a turning point in science which necessitated the adoption of a radically different and alternative model of space.Īt the time it was held that in order for light to travel through space it was necessary that there was a medium filling the void through which it could propagate, much like how sound waves travel through the air or ripples through water. The Michelson–Morley experiment was an experiment designed to test the velocity of light that was first performed in 1887 by Albert A.
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