The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-drift Experiments, 1880-1930University of Texas Press, 28. ágú. 2013 - 396 síður The Ethereal Aether is a historical narrative of one of the great experiments in modern physical science. The fame of the 1887 Michelson-Morley aether-drift test on the relative motion of the earth and the luminiferous aether derives largely from the role it is popularly supposed to have played in the origins, and later in the justification, of Albert Einstein’s first theory of relativity; its importance is its own. As a case history of the intermittent performance of an experiment in physical optics from 1880 to 1930 and of the men whose work it was, this study describes chronologically the conception, experimental design, first trials, repetitions, influence on physical theory, and eventual climax of the optical experiment. Michelson, Morley, and their colleague Miller were the prime actors in this half-century drama of confrontation between experimental and theoretical physics. The issue concerned the relative motion of “Spaceship Earth” and the Universe, as measured against the background of a luminiferous medium supposedly filling all interstellar space. At stake, it seemed, were the phenomena of astronomical aberration, the wave theory of light, and the Newtonian concepts of absolute space and time. James Clerk Maxwell’s suggestion for a test of his electromagnetic theory was translated by Michelson into an experimental design in 1881, redesigned and reaffirmed as a null result with Morley in 1887, thereafter modified and partially repeated by Morley and Miller, finally completed in 1926 by Miller alone, then by Michelson’s team again in the late 1920s. Meanwhile Helmholtz, Kelvin, Rayleigh, FitzGerald, Lodge, Larmor, Lorentz, and Poincaré—most of the great names in theoretical physics at the turn of the twentieth century—had wrestled with the anomaly presented by Michelson’s experiment. As the relativity and quantum theories matured, wave-particle duality was accepted by a new generation of physicists. The aether-drift tests disproved the old and verified the new theories of light and electromagnetism. By 1930 they seemed to explain Einstein, relativity, and space-time. But in historical fact, the aether died only with its believers. |
From inside the book
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... phenomena are inextricably intermixed inman's vision, making thisquestion atrue quandary. Twomost ancient and perennial answers to theproblem of light have postulated that it consists primarily either ofwaves or of particles. In ...
... phenomena. The concept of heat as asubstance called “caloric” was being challengedby theidea ofheat as aprocessof matterin motion. Thenotionoffire asasubstance called “phlogiston” was abolished bythe chemical revolution, and ...
... phenomena with which geometrical optics had been concerned. In order to derive thefirst good values for the velocity oflight, Huygens combined Roemer's time estimates from occultationsofthe moons of Jupiterwith new estimates of the ...
... phenomenon of the apparent bending of light around obstacles in itsway. Grimaldi's pinhole experiments, however, madeless ofan impression on Newton than the reciprocal relations between lightrays and material bodies, such asthin films ...
... phenomena.Careful experiments and calculations failedto support anyofthese hypotheses. At last heconjectured that “all the phaenomena hitherto mentioned” were caused by a combination of the motionof light withthe earth's annual ...
Efni
Dramatis Personae of Aether Drift | |
Michelson and Interferometry 18801883 | |
The Classic Experiments 18841890 | |
Contradictionsand Contractions 18901900 The | |
TheRelative Motionofthe Earth andthe | |
Influence of Motionof the Mediumon the Velocity | |
Aðrar útgáfur - View all
The Ethereal Aether: A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-drift ... Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. Takmarkað sýnishorn - 2012 |
The Ethereal Aether. A History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-drift ... Loyd S. Jr Swenson Engin sýnishorn í boði - 1972 |