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Michelson Morley Experiment And Aberration


LightStorm

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Hi all. I am trying to make sense of this quote from Michelson's second paper (1887) on his experiment.

"Lorentz then proposes a modification which combines some ideas of Stokes and Fresnel, and assumes the existence of a potential, together with Fresnel's coefficient. If now it were legitimate to conclude from the present work that the ether is at rest with regard to the earth's surface, according to Lorentz there could not be a velocity potential, and his own theory also fails."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_R ... rous_Ether

My questions are: 

1. What does Michelson mean by "velocity potential"?
2. What does Michelson mean when he says, "Lorentz' theory also fails".
3. Does velocity potential mean, the 20.5 arcseconds of aberration due to the motion of the earth?

I also made an animation of the aberration in the MMX. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbOzYRUKL5g

Edited by LightStorm
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Hi all. I am trying to make sense of this quote from Michelson's second paper (1887) on his experiment.

 

"Lorentz then proposes a modification which combines some ideas of Stokes and Fresnel, and assumes the existence of a potential, together with Fresnel's coefficient. If now it were legitimate to conclude from the present work that the ether is at rest with regard to the earth's surface, according to Lorentz there could not be a velocity potential, and his own theory also fails."

 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_R ... rous_Ether

 

My questions are: 

 

1. What does Michelson mean by "velocity potential"?

2. What does Michelson mean when he says, "Lorentz' theory also fails".

3. Does velocity potential mean, the 20.5 arcseconds of aberration due to the motion of the earth?

 

I also made an animation of the aberration in the MMX. Here's the link:

 

 

From the context I would say you need to look up the theory of Stokes that is being referred to.

 

(I'm not watching YouTube videos from yet another relativity crank, however.) 

Edited by OceanBreeze
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Hi all. I am trying to make sense of this quote from Michelson's second paper (1887) on his experiment.

 

"Lorentz then proposes a modification which combines some ideas of Stokes and Fresnel, and assumes the existence of a potential, together with Fresnel's coefficient. If now it were legitimate to conclude from the present work that the ether is at rest with regard to the earth's surface, according to Lorentz there could not be a velocity potential, and his own theory also fails."

 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_R ... rous_Ether

 

My questions are: 

 

1. What does Michelson mean by "velocity potential"?

2. What does Michelson mean when he says, "Lorentz' theory also fails".

3. Does velocity potential mean, the 20.5 arcseconds of aberration due to the motion of the earth?

 

I also made an animation of the aberration in the MMX. Here's the link:

 

 

This is the second post where you had an external link that is self-promotional and it had to be removed.

 

Consider this a warning not to continue doing this.

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For the benefit of readers: The animation (that I had linked) was an exact depiction of these statements from Michelson:

 

"Suppose now, the ether being at rest, that the whole apparatus moves in the direction sc, with the velocity of the earth in its orbit, the directions and distances traversed by the rays will be altered thus:— The ray sa is reflected along ab, fig. 2; the angle bab, being equal to the aberration =a, is returned along ba/, (aba/ =2a), and goes to the focus of the telescope, whose direction is unaltered. The transmitted ray goes along ac, is returned along ca/, and is reflected at a/, making ca/e equal 90—a, and therefore still coinciding with the first ray. It may be remarked that the rays ba/ and ca/, do not now meet exactly in the same point a/, though the difference is of the second order;"

 

----

 

A picture may paint a thousand words, an animation paints a million. Is there a way to share animations on this website?

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For the benefit of readers: The animation (that I had linked) was an exact depiction of these statements from Michelson:

 

"Suppose now, the ether being at rest, that the whole apparatus moves in the direction sc, with the velocity of the earth in its orbit, the directions and distances traversed by the rays will be altered thus:— The ray sa is reflected along ab, fig. 2; the angle bab, being equal to the aberration =a, is returned along ba/, (aba/ =2a), and goes to the focus of the telescope, whose direction is unaltered. The transmitted ray goes along ac, is returned along ca/, and is reflected at a/, making ca/e equal 90—a, and therefore still coinciding with the first ray. It may be remarked that the rays ba/ and ca/, do not now meet exactly in the same point a/, though the difference is of the second order;"

 

----

 

A picture may paint a thousand words, an animation paints a million. Is there a way to share animations on this website?

 

 

The link seemed to be self-promotional to me so I removed it, maybe that was a little heavy-handed.

 

Since you now seem to be engaging in a responsive manner, I think we should accommodate you and allow you to insert your link to the animation again.

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The link seemed to be self-promotional to me so I removed it, maybe that was a little heavy-handed.

 

Since you now seem to be engaging in a responsive manner, I think we should accommodate you and allow you to insert your link to the animation again.

 

That's cool. I updated the post with the link to the animation.

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  • 1 month later...

Anyone wanna take on my questions? Is velocity potential what I say it is? I am assuming it to be, 20.5 arcseconds. Anyone agree with this?

Ok, "You want the truth? You cant handle the truth!"  -Jack Nicholson line.

But I think you actually may be able to swap paradigms if the reason is sufficent. (unlike most other members here)

Please go check out, (carefully) the following Information: (not my website)

http://www.absolute-relativity.be

Maybe start with Part 1 and part 2 videos as a primer, then digest the papers which are downloadable.

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Ok, "You want the truth? You cant handle the truth!"  -Jack Nicholson line.

But I think you actually may be able to swap paradigms if the reason is sufficent. (unlike most other members here)

Please go check out, (carefully) the following Information: (not my website)

http://www.absolute-relativity.be

Maybe start with Part 1 and part 2 videos as a primer, then digest the papers which are downloadable.

 

I will. Thanks for the link.

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At the beginning of the video, a laser dot appears to move up and down, over time. Is that the anomaly?

Seems to be initial observed evidence, he says it needs to be repeated with better equipment, longer distances, etc. The point is, he calculated that the dot would move according to the position of the earth relative to the sun, and it does move the way he claimed. I think he considered temperature effects in the atmosphere, I have not read his whole work.

The thing I took away from his work was that Maxwell did not claim that light was constant, everywhere. No, its only constant velocity relative to the MEDIUM that its in. That would be a vacuum when its constant relative to the vacuum.  Exactly as light speed is constant in water, relative to the water, NOT relative to the source, or to the observer.  Same in a diamond, light speed is constant relative to the diamond, (pretend you have a really long diamond, and the source was inside the diamond.....  the light speed is relative to the medium of the diamond. It won't change speed when moving in the diamond, even if you move the diamond at some great speed. Won't affect the speed of light that currently occurring inside that diamond.

Apply this to light in a vacuum, it's not going to change its speed relative to the vacuum, because it's NEVER relative to anything else that's moving around in that same vacuum.

This being the case, it would be normal for a moving observer, relative to the light, or relative also to the vacuum medium, to measure light speed as c + his own velocity.  Physics prevents a moving person relative to some other moving thing, to still get the same speed as when he was not moving.

Swap to light in water, get the pulse of light moving, it's moving at its constant velocity according to refractive index, then you measure that, then fly over the water in a jet, measure the light speed in the water, you MUST get c + your own velocity relative to the water.

So there was never any "invariance " problem of Maxwell's equations that Lorentz and Einstein ever needed to fix.  Trying to fix a non-problem has MADE problems.

Edited by marcospolo
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Seems to be initial observed evidence, he says it needs to be repeated with better equipment, longer distances, etc. The point is, he calculated that the dot would move according to the position of the earth relative to the sun, and it does move the way he claimed. I think he considered temperature effects in the atmosphere, I have not read his whole work.

 

That's good news. He called it BB' shift in his video. His observations are related to aberration, even though he doesn't mention them. I hope that he gets around to repeating his experiment with better equipment.

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