The Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 is almost solely responsible for removing the ether from Theoretical Physics. It was intended to merely demonstrate the existence of the ether, which all physicists at the time believed existed because Fresnel, Poisson and Arago proved that light is a wave, in 1802, I think (Don't quote that date). Like water waves require water to exist, lightwaves also require a medium through which to flow (They are actually ether waves). The principle is that of riding a motorcycle on a windless day, we feel the wind in our faces because of our own movement. Earth passes through the still ether, and therefore feels the ether wind. Michelson's interferometer was very ingenious, and sought to compare the phase-change relationship between two halves of a split beam, when they were reunited. It was expected that as the interferometer table was rotated vis a vis the ether wind direction, the transit time over the separate paths of the two beams would alter relative to one another, and this would cause an interference fringes pattern to alter. But the fringes pattern remained stable. This was interpreted as no ether wind and therefore no ether. The error of this interpretation is that it did not allow for the compression/extension of waves, which nulled the transit time effect. they had used a boat-on-a-stream analogy to represent the wave transit time, but boats are not compressible, so the analogy is invalid. No one spotted this error, not even Einstein. So everyone accepted "no ether". As a result, Einstein had to theoretically warp empty space to make it conform to astronomical observations. Photon particles were invented, because particles do not require a medium through which to travel. The progression has become progressively more bizarre as more observations are made, and attempts made to explain them without the ether. So now they give us the Singularity, Big Bang, Inflation, Expansion, Acceleration and continued Expansion to Entropized black out; scenario. Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Antigravity, Higgs Fields and particles, gravitons,zero point energy, tired light and vacuum energy are all part of the desperate attempt to explain astronomical observations without saying the E-word. If you want to see this experiment setup, visit my site at http://ca.geocities.com/rayredbourne.

• Re: Re: what is this????? - alexander - March 3, 2001 - 18:01 UTC
  • Re: Re: Re: what is this????? - rayredbourne - March 4, 2001 - 18:08 UTC
    • This is comical - bruce - March 4, 2001 - 21:00 UTC
      • Re: This is comical - yanniru - March 4, 2001 - 23:55 UTC