[TheForge] Michelson's and Morley's experiment (long and off topic)

[Gladish Family]

Also, see Steven Hawkings' new book, The Universe in a Nutshell for some
understandable descriptions of how our frame of reference has changed since
Einstein.
The trouble (as I see it) with the theory of aether is that there's no
"place" for it to exist.
We picture it filling all the spaces where everything else isn't, but it
turns out that space itself doesn't exist in the way that we assume that it
does. Of course we think of intergalactic space in terms of our usual frame
of reference: beings and objects moving through an invisible medium (air),
but we have to change the paradigm when we change the frame of reference- it
just doesn't apply to the bigger picture.
For instance, a thousand years ago you could go East forever! There was just
no end to it... Then our picture changed from a limitless flat universe to
living on the surface of a ball, and now East comes around and hits you on
the back of the head if you follow it far enough. Same with time and space.
Our desire to find a universal frame of reference reminds me of the little
Indian boy who went to his grandma, asking, "Grandma- you said that the land
is a gigantic turtle. Well, what's the turtle standing on?"
Grandma replies, "Another turtle."
"And what's he standing on?"
"Another turtle."
"...and he's standing on another turtle?"
"Don't you understand, son, it's turtles all the way down!"

Andy G.

> 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