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The Aether is real!

I'm trying to draw some conclusions from this repeat of the Michelson-Morley experiment, which yields an interesting result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T0d7o8X2-E

Apparently he made a repeat attempt with more stable equipment yielding the same result. (http://ivanik3.narod.ru/MM/GrusenickMM.pdf)

Is the experiment wrong or does this imply the involvement of an Aether?

Reply 1

silentshadows

The real experiment (and other repeats involving more sophisticated equipment) all point to the result that there is no aether. IIRC the results seem to fit exactly in line with what was predicted by special relativity, which is the theory we use now.

Reply 2

Joinedup

I'd assume something is flexing due to gravity when he rotates around the horizontal axis - should have showed how he was controlling for this.

also what happens when the horizontal axis is pointed in other directions?

pretty basic points that would be marked down in A level

Reply 3

uberteknik

Original post by Joinedup

PRSOM

That was exactly my conclusion when I saw the video. Very telling that the interference fringes move one way and then the other at a cyclic position of pi radians apart and only when the apparatus is in one plane of orientation.

Another easy way of determining if gravity is flexing the support beam or another part of the apparatus is to vary the angle of the plane of rotation from horizontal to vertical in steps and investigate if there is a mgcos(theta) type relationship in the fringe movement. My bet says it will.

EDIT. looked more closely and my suspect component would be the beam splitter which may be flexing under gravity and so altering the distance between the paths of the two beams and therefore changing the phase relationship of the interferometry.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

Anaris

I found a repeat of this experiment yielding different results,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH-NC8rvGvU

the movement of fringe lines is significantly less, but there is some movement.

Reply 5

Joinedup

Original post by Anaris

I found a repeat of this experiment yielding different results,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH-NC8rvGvU

the movement of fringe lines is significantly less, but there is some movement.

The guy there says he thinks it's the beamsplitter flexing & demonstrates how you can create gross changes of the interference pattern with the force from a light touch on the beamsplitter.

Both those guys have used plane beamsplitters of quite a large size I reckon if they'd forked out for more expensive cubic ones they'd have seen less deformation.