🚀 go-pugleaf

On Jul 10, 6:40 pm, Uncle Ben <b...@greenba.com> wrote in sci.physics:
> How does the anti-Einstein crowd explain the famous Michelson-Morley
> experiment?
>
> Just to refresh memories, they looked for the ether, trying to measure
> the velocity of the earth through it.  Their interferometer floated on
> the suface of a tank to eliminate vibrations.  They tried during
> different times of the year, when the motion of the earth around the
> sun was going in opposite directions relative to the stars. And they
> tried just rotating the interferometer.  The sensitivity of the
> interferometer was such that they should have been able to detect
> motion at a small fraction of the speed of light.
>
> They never did find any evidence of motion through the ether.
> Conclusion: Either a) the luminiferous ether that fills all space and
> transmits light to us from the stars is fixed to a floating
> interferometer in a tank in the basement of Adelbert Hall at Western
> Reserve University, or b) there is no ether, or c) galillean
> relativity is wrong, or some combination of these ideas.
>
> Einstein proposed (independently of this experiment,which he learned
> about later) answer c), and that if there is an ether, it is so clever
> at hiding from us that we can never detect it.
>
> What do the anti-relativity folk have to say about this experiment?  I
> predict that Spaceman will say their interferometer malfunctioned.
> Some will say that Michelson and Morley must have been Jewish.  Other
> than that, I am curious.
>
> Uncle Ben

If you were somewhat cleverer you question would have been:

"Why on earth didn't they explain the Michelson-Morley experiment in
terms of Newton's emission theory of light?"

Just read your cleverest Masters:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second
principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to
be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also
a natural one? Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein
had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this
one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether. If it
was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle?
Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the
one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote
his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will
prove to be superfluous."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com