[TheForge] Michelson's and Morley's experiment

Tue Feb 24 22:42:01 2004

Andy, Bruce and others,

I read slowly. I refer you to the text book by Paul Tipler "Physics" On
pages 1103 through 1106, he discusses the M&M experiment and the resulting
null result. M&M were trying to measure the speed of light relative to the
earth and from this measurement to determine the velocity of the earth
relative to the ether. Even though the experiment was repeated several times
with increasingly sensitive apparatus, a null answer was the result. The
reason for this result came from Einstein in 1905. His theory of special
relativity is based on two postulates.
1. Absolute, uniform motion cannot be detected.
2. The speed of light is independent of the motion of the source.

To my knowledge, no experiment has ever been done that successfully
disproves Einstein's theory. Postulate #1 requires a null result from the
M&M experiment.

Mark
Snow Hill, Maryland
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Freeman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Michelson's and Morley's experiment

> Negative propositions can be proved.  The supposition that they cannot
> be proved is simply not true.
> Bruce
> NJ
>
> >>> [email protected] 2/18/2004 1:34:30 PM >>>
>
>
>
> Daniel Kretchmar wrote:
> >
> >      If we are going to be specific, Michelson's and Morley's
> experiment proved
> > that they could not detect the aether.
>
>     This is a critical point.  In fact, they didn't even prove
>     that much.  They proved that their particular experiment
>     could not detect it.  Could others?  That will only be known
>     for certain when one succeeds.  Negative propositions are
>     inherently unprovable, at least as far as anyone knows.
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