Exploring the Michelson-Morley Experiment: Does Ether Exist?

[mark goldman]

I have never understood why this experiment is so generally cited as demonstrating the non-existence of "ether." (To be clear here, I am not suggesting that ether exists, I am just frustrated that I cannot seem to appreciate this landmark experiment.) My understanding of the experiment is that the speed of light was measured repeatedly at various times of the year. Each time, light was measured traveling at perpendicular angels. I understand the concept that something, (say a boat on a river) traveling parallel to a "current" will travel at one speed with the current and another speed against the current, and a third speed when traveling on a perpendicular to the current. As I understand the explanations of the experiment, when its results demonstrated a constant speed of light regardless of direction, this was universally accepted as conclusive proof that ether did not exist.

I get lost on this point--if ether were thought to permeate space, and light traveled through the ether--then Earth would be moving through it constantly at all times,--so why wouldn't the speed of light be a constant passing through it? Whatever affect ether would have on the speed of light, wouldn't it be a constant? The only explanation I can muster is that ether required a "current." I know at one time there was a theory that ether had a "wind" that "blew" through space, and that Earth traveled in varying directions relative to this wind, so therefore the measurements of the speed of light were affected by the direction of the "wind" relative to earth. But I believe, that idea was discarded, and nonetheless, the Michelson Morley experiment was accepted as proving that ether, even without a "wind" did not exist.

I've tried unsuccessfully to understand the experiment's results on my own for quite some time. Over the years I've read explanations of the experiment from Hawking, Greene, Eddington, Russell and others. Clearly, I'm missing something here that is, no doubt, obvious. So if anyone has the patience, I'd appreciate any insight that could be offered.

With appreciation. Mark Goldman

 

[Vorde]

Do you know about reference frames?

The general idea of the ether is that there is some 'thing' that light passes through. This means that there is a specific reference frame of the ether for which the speed of light is a constant in all directions.

The thing is, according to the Copernican principle, this 'special' reference frame cannot be centered at Earth because that would imply something special about Earth's place in the universe. That means that as the Earth moves around the sun, regardless of what reference frame the ether is actually in, if it is anything but Earth's (and the Copernican Principle says it cannot be Earth's) the relative velocity of Earth with regards to the ether will change over the course of the year.

This means the measured velocity of light will change over the year. The M-M experiment showed that it did not, and while the result did not single handedly end the ether theory, it was definitely its death knell.

 

[soothsayer]

I think you've got it when you talk about an ether "wind". Think of the ether as a preferred, "stationary" frame in space. It does not have an inherent "wind", but Earth is accelerating through it, constantly creating an ether "wind" on Earth. I don't believe scientists of the day thought there was anything wrong with that train of thought. Imagine throwing a ball out of the window of a moving car: depending on which way you through the ball, it may travel quickly, or slowly, or travel in a curved path. The idea being that at some times, the beam of light would travel against this wind, with the wind, perpendicular to the wind, etc. And that these interactions with the ether should be measurable. They were not. Does this help?

 

[mark goldman]

Vorde, Soothsayer,

While I'd like to think about your comments before replying, I want to quickly say thank you for responding. I appreciate it.

Mark Goldman

 

[harrylin]

I have never understood why this experiment is so generally cited as demonstrating the non-existence of "ether." [...]

That is indeed a fable, likely due to misunderstanding, as you will find if you read old papers and books on SR (to my regret I only found out when doing so!). However, I also would like to know the exact cause of that misunderstanding, as it's certainly instructive.

The only explanation I can muster is that ether required a "current." I know at one time there was a theory that ether had a "wind" that "blew" through space, and that Earth traveled in varying directions relative to this wind, so therefore the measurements of the speed of light were affected by the direction of the "wind" relative to earth. But I believe, that idea was discarded, and nonetheless, the Michelson Morley experiment was accepted as proving that ether, even without a "wind" did not exist. [...]

Not exactly - you seem to mix up several models. But I think that you point to a plausible explanation. Perhaps there was confusion with the disproof of the Stokes ether, and all models were thrown on a heap?

PS. As you mentioned Eddington, I now checked his 1920 book Space Time and Gravitation, in which he explained why "the aether is now only a background and not an active participant in the theory."

 

[MikeLizzi]

One clarification on the OP's post. The Michelson Morley inteferometer did not measure the speed of light. It was not intended to do that. It's purpose (as explained by the other posters) was to detect the motion of the Earth through the ether.

Here is a layman's analogy of the experiment I wrote up for myself that might be of interest to others.

http://www.relativitysimulation.com/Documents/MichaelsonMorelyAnalogy.htm

 

[bobc2]

Mark, from other posts related to this subject, I think most forum folks here would tell you that the ether has not been disproven by the Michelson-Morley experiment. The Lorentz Ether Theory (LET) is cited often here as a theory that supports the existence of the ether, and most forum members who have commented on the subject maintain that this theory has not been disproven.

Check out posts by Vandam and you will get a sampling of attitudes strongly critical of Vandam for his assertion that LET is not a viable theory.

 

[soothsayer]

I think LET is a viable theory, but I just don't really like the idea. SR seems simpler and more elegant, to me. Are there theoretically any experiments that could confirm one or the other?

 

[harrylin]

I think LET is a viable theory, but I just don't really like the idea. SR seems simpler and more elegant, to me. Are there theoretically any experiments that could confirm one or the other?

SR is the same without metaphysical explanation; only experiments that go beyond testing SR could in theory distinguish between different interpretations (and if we can rely on Einstein and Eddington, then GR doesn't change a thing). QM could in theory do so because of Bell's theorem, but in practice that isn't likely to happen because of ambiguities and too many possible interpretations of QM as well.

 

[Ken Natton]

I’m not sure that, at the time of the experiment, the conclusion was that the aether did not exist, only that they had failed to detect it as they had expected to. The basic reasons for believing in it remained. It served two purposes. One as the medium in which the heat and light of the Sun, which had been proven to be a wave form, reached us, and two as the absolute reference frame in Newtonian Mechanics. It was thus only when Einstein had his miracle year in 1905 that things changed. First, his paper on Special Relativity removed the need for it as an absolute reference frame. Then his paper on the photo-electric effect, which demonstrated that light was, after all, a stream of particles, removed the need for it as a medium. Suddenly the aether was redundant and it was realized that the reason that Michelson Morley had failed to detect it is because it doesn’t exist.

I am sure I remember reading a post on another thread on this forum which discussed this persistence of the idea of an aether. Somebody pointed out that if you say that the aether does exist then you must accept that it has a certain list of properties. You can’t detect it, it isn’t made of any element that we know of, it has no mass etc, such that, ‘it exists and has these properties’ on the one hand, and ‘it doesn’t exist’ on the other hand are actually exactly the same thing.

 

[Vorde]

LET and SR are both viable theories, the only difference is what you choose to metaphysically believe:

SR requires that you take for granted that for seemingly no reason, the universe maintains the consistency of the speed of light without any understanding of why.
LET requires that you accept the existence of a preferred reference frame wherein dwells an undetectable field that permeates the entire universe.

Which you choose to believe is up to you, however I believe that what SR requires you to 'deal with' is easier that what LET makes you deal with. Furthermore SR leads so naturally into GR.

The point as relating to the M-M experiment is that M and M actually set out to try and prove the existence of the ether because they assumed they would detect a change in the speed of light as the Earth went around the sun (as someone else pointed out, they weren't actually measuring the change in the speed of light, but I think this simplification isn't detrimental to the result), and they didn't detect it. LET is a version of the ether theory which is compatible with the M-M experiment, but it seems to me that LET is a force-adapation of old theories to new results, rather than the simplicity and elegance that SR brought as a new theory.

 

[Vandam]

LET and SR are both viable theories, the only difference is what you choose to metaphysically believe:

SR requires that you take for granted that for seemingly no reason, the universe maintains the consistency of the speed of light without any understanding of why.
LET requires that you accept the existence of a preferred reference frame wherein dwells an undetectable field that permeates the entire universe.

I do not see why one should take LET as an option as long as there is no prove that the ether exists.
My neighbour can come up with a theory with flying pink elephants that might explain the constancy of the speed of light. Would you then take his point of view also into consideration?
For the LET believers:
1/ Prove me that the ether exists. You cannot. To put it bluntly: that's why Einstein is Einstein, and Lorentz the loser.
2/ Show me how relativity of simultaney makes sense in LET. You cannot. Unless you start with abstract mathematical coordinates that have no physical meaning in the physical ether. To save the appearances you will then make the physical significance a philosophical debate. Great physics.
LET is a mess.

 

[harrylin]

[..] there is no prove that the ether exists.
My neighbour can come up with a theory with flying pink elephants that might explain the constancy of the speed of light. [..]

A pink elephant is no help for modeling light propagation - therefore you won't find your neighbour's model in the scientific literature.

1/ Prove me that the ether exists. [...]

Please don't start such a discussion. It's irrelevant for the OP's question.
Moreover, attempts to answer your challenge are not allowed on this forum:

'Generally, in the science discussion forums we do not allow the following: [..] Attempts to promote or resuscitate theories that have been discredited or superseded (e.g. Lorentz ether theory); this does not exclude discussion of those theories in a purely historical context'

 

[Vandam]

A pink elephant is no help for modeling light propagation - therefore you won't find your neighbour's model in the scientific literature.

Please don't start such a discussion. It's irrelevant for the OP's question.
Moreover, attempts to answer your question are not allowed on this forum:

'Generally, in the science discussion forums we do not allow the following: [..] Attempts to promote [...] theories that have been discredited or superseded (e.g. Lorentz ether theory); this does not exclude discussion of those theories in a purely historical context'

-That's a good one. If you think I want to promote LET. haha...
-I take note that LET has been dicredited and superseded. Thanks.
-Unfortunately quite a few guys on Pf do not deal with LET in an historical context. They use it today as it suites them because they consider LET and SR as equally valid. (They even use it to discredit block universe ;)

 

[harrylin]

-That's a good one. If you think I want to promote LET. haha... [...]

Instead, I warned you and other participants that you were inciting them to break the rules - which is almost as bad as (or even worse than!) breaking those rules yourself.

[..] They even use it to discredit block universe ;)

A pink elephant can be a valid counter argument against a purple bear without need to promote it - if you don't understand that, please discuss it not here but in one of the threads about the block universe.

 

[someGorilla]

I have never understood why this experiment is so generally cited as demonstrating the non-existence of "ether."

It doesn't. The Michelson-Morley experiment measures the ether wind, relative to Earth. Actually, relative to the very spot where the experiment is performed. The ether wind was found to be always zero.
From this you can infer:
1) There is no ether.
or:
2) Ether exists, but the Earth has always zero velocity with respect to it. This is hard to believe, once you know that the Earth is not a special place in the universe – it's not fixed at its centre, and actually moves around a lot.

Choosing 1) yields a simpler, cleaner description of the observed facts. But the experiment doesn't (and cannot) prove that ether doesn't exist. There were a host of alternative theories at the time that explained why no ether wind was to be found on Earth, and there was a long trail of experimentation going on to test them. In today's narration of the progress of science Michelson and Morley's experiment is pictured as a landmark event, but this is oversimplifying things a bit. A new theoretical framework is rarely (if ever) the result of one single experiment.

 

[harrylin]

It doesn't. The Michelson-Morley experiment measures the ether wind, relative to Earth. Actually, relative to the very spot where the experiment is performed. The ether wind was found to be always zero.
From this you can infer:
1) There is no ether.
or:
2) Ether exists, but the Earth has always zero velocity with respect to it. This is hard to believe, once you know that the Earth [..] actually moves around a lot.[..]

You forgot the main inference that followed (Lorentz contraction), and which led the way to SR. It's all rather well explained in papers and books by Lorentz, Einstein, Eddington etc.
And note that possibility 2 was already held to be disproved by then (also done by Michelson): http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Influence_of_Motion_of_the_Medium_on_the_Velocity_of_Light

 

[someGorilla]

You forgot the main inference that followed (Lorentz contraction), and which led the way to SR. It's all rather well explained in papers and books by Lorentz, Einstein, Eddington etc.
And note that possibility 2 was already held to be disproved by then (also done by Michelson): http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Influence_of_Motion_of_the_Medium_on_the_Velocity_of_Light

Yep.

 

[soothsayer]

I believe there was a theory that some of the ether was dragged along by the earth, making the ether "wind" stationary locally, but not away from the Earth, the idea that is we could put this experiment in orbit, it would find the effect that the experiment on the Earth could not. But that idea was as representative as a death knell for the ether theory than the failed experiment.

 

[ZikZak]

But that idea was as representative as a death knell for the ether theory than the failed experiment.

That might be reasonable, if the ether-drag theory had been proposed after MM in order to explain it, but it was in fact proposed by George Stokes in 1845, as an alternative to the partial ether drag hypothesis of Fresnel. Fresnel realized in 1818 that some of the ether must be dragged along by matter in order to explain stellar aberration (otherwise the refractive index of the telescope lens should vary along with its velocity through the ether). The problem with that theory being that partial dragging would itself result in a chromatic aberration that was never seen. So Stokes proposed that ALL of the ether was dragged by a ponderable body, but that the velocities of the ponderable body and the ether occupying the same space were different.

The MM experiment was meant to test the amount of ether wind in the laboratory, which would be substantial under Fresnel's theory but could be essentially zero in Stokes's theory as the Earth dragged all of the nearby ether with it. So when it was performed, the interpretation of the results was unclear, because: (a) contrary to what you read in the textbooks, MM did NOT make the test at different times of year and day (the experiment took place over the course of just a few days in July 1887), (b) the amount of data collected was actually quite small, consisting of only about 25 turns of the instrument, and (c) there were so many ether theories around (no such thing as THE ether theory) that the result seemed to confirm some (such as Stokes'), while falsifying others (such as Fresnel's).

Obviously the experiment needed repetition, but that didn't happen for over a decade, because Michaelson's expertise at building interferometers was essentially unique, and he decided to drop the experiment after the first week. So it should not be surprising that the immediate reaction at the time of publication was lukewarm and basically a scientific shrug.

 

[harrylin]

[..] Obviously the experiment needed repetition, but that didn't happen for over a decade, because Michaelson's expertise at building interferometers was essentially unique, and he decided to drop the experiment after the first week.[..]

I wasn't aware that he did not repeat quickly the experiment. Why do you think that he decided to drop the experiment after the first week? Michelson claimed to the contrary that he was going to repeat it "at intervals of three months". That's puzzling...
- https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Relative_Motion_of_the_Earth_and_the_Luminiferous_Ether

 

[Histspec]

I wasn't aware that he did not repeat quickly the experiment. Why do you think that he decided to drop the experiment after the first week? Michelson claimed to the contrary that he was going to repeat it "at intervals of three months". That's puzzling...
- https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Relative_Motion_of_the_Earth_and_the_Luminiferous_Ether

Michelson and Morley tried to use their interferometry technique in order to establish a standard of length. Already in June 1887 (before the ether drift measurement) they performed preliminary standard length measurements. Then they performed their ether drift measurements in July, and soon after they continued their length standard measurements, publishing the papers:

Michelson&Morley (1887): "On a method of making the wave-length of sodium light the actual and practical standard of length", Am. J. Sci, 34, 427-430

Michelson&Morley (1889): "On the feasibility of establishing a light-wave as the ultimate standard of length", Am. J. Sci, 38, 181-186

Further information:
Staley, Richard (2009), "Interferometers and their uses", in: "Einstein's generation. The origins of the relativity revolution"

 

[harrylin]

Michelson and Morley tried to use their interferometry technique in order to establish a standard of length. Already in April 1887 (before the ether drift measurement) they performed preliminary standard length measurements. Then they performed their ether drift measurements in July, and soon after they continued their length standard measurements, publishing the papers:

Michelson&Morley (1887): "On a method of making the wave-length of sodium light the actual and practical standard of length", Am. J. Sci, 34, 427-430

Michelson&Morley (1889): "On the feasibility of establishing a light-wave as the ultimate standard of length", Am. J. Sci, 38, 181-186[..]

Thanks, that's very interesting information! It appears that they were too occupied with those efforts.

 

[ZikZak]

Yeah, MM were never very good theoretical physicists (Morley was actually a chemist), and I think were a bit overwhelmed by all the possible interpretations of the experiment. What they did discover is that they had invented a fantastic means of measuring length, which was an activity both theoretically simple, and enormously useful.

 

[cmmcnamara]

I've only briefly read on the topic of LET and some quantum theories, so bear with me, but isn't there a similar kind of controversy going on with modern physics as well? Lorentz believed in an invisible expansive field called ether but aren't were currently hypothesizing about something similar regarding the Higg's field? Please shut me up immediately if I have the wrong idea here, but I thought the arguments exhibit similarity.

 

[ZapperZ]

I've only briefly read on the topic of LET and some quantum theories, so bear with me, but isn't there a similar kind of controversy going on with modern physics as well? Lorentz believed in an invisible expansive field called ether but aren't were currently hypothesizing about something similar regarding the Higg's field? Please shut me up immediately if I have the wrong idea here, but I thought the arguments exhibit similarity.

So how is the Higgs field related to the ether? I fail to see the physics where the Higgs field could somehow define an 'absolute' reference frame. Can you tell me how fast we are moving through this field right now?

Zz.

 

[cmmcnamara]

Sorry I suppose I wasn't very specific. I'm not saying the Higgs field is related in this manner, I was mentioning it because a concept like the ether was once considered a viable theory as the Higgs field also currently is. I'm not vying for the ethers validity whatsoever.

 

[ZapperZ]

Sorry I suppose I wasn't very specific. I'm not saying the Higgs field is related in this manner, I was mentioning it because a concept like the ether was once considered a viable theory as the Higgs field also currently is. I'm not vying for the ethers validity whatsoever.

But then, one can say the same thing with just about ANY field. Would the EM field that permeates all of space as well (as described by QED) be of the "same concept"? Would the self-energy field that endows mass to the electron in a material be of the same concept?

One doesn't need to reach for the Higgs field if one simply want a similar concept.

It all boils down to here that I really can't see having the ether and the Higgs field even being mentioned in the same manner or sentence. They are as different as night and day, besides the obvious fact that one has no experimental evidence, while the other does.

Zz.

 

[Namesinger]

I’m not sure that, at the time of the [Michelson-Morley] experiment, the conclusion was that the aether did not exist, only that they had failed to detect it as they had expected to. The basic reasons for believing in it remained.

I agree. The MM experiments showed only that no discernible difference in the speed of light exists in any direction in which we can point an interferometer. One can however postulate that aether has resistance only in a direction 90 degrees away from our three standard spatial dimensions. Another post has suggested that for the concept of aether to be coherent, aether must have properties. Aether has the property of conducting electro-magnetic waves: the evidence for this is that EM does indeed have wave characteristics such as interference patterns. Gotta be something there that's waving. no?

If one accepts the possibility of aether as a kind of "river" flowing at right angles through our three dimensions, this in turn opens the door for a variation on Lord Kelvin's vortex theory of atoms, with atoms as a three-dimensional slice of a hyper-dimensional vortex in the aether.

 

[soothsayer]

I stumbled across Dirac's aether theory which was derived from QFT. If I'm not mistaken, this idea gradually became the foundation of Superfluid Vacuum Theory as it is today. Very interesting.

http://www.fisicateorica.me/reposit...toricosordemcronologica/1951b -Dirac1951b.pdf

 

[Namesinger]

Thanks Soothsayer - I wasn't aware of SVT, but it seems pretty relevant. My thought experiment goes like this: take a snapshot of the universe - a representation of three dimensions in two, to free up another dimension for visualization. Print the snapshot on a permeable surface, like a net. Stretch the net a foot or so over the bottom of a (hyperdimensional) swimming pool. Now open a drain in the bottom of the pool, so a vortex forms that intersects the net. Now restore our 2D snapshot back to three, so the "circle" where the vortex intersects the net is actually a sphere, with little rotating bits (subatomic particles) orbiting the center - the nucleus. Flotsam (like a floating leaf) circling the edges of an irrotational vortex (the kind you generally see in nature) has no spin of its own but only spins relative to the center of the vortex. If particles generally can be thought of as 3-dimensional slices of an n-dimensional vortex, I wonder if this local rotation around the edges of the vortex and relative to its center could be a strong analogy (at least) to the Higgs boson? As the local rotation has to do with fluid getting "sucked in" to the vortex - that is, imparting angular momentum to relatively stationary surrounding hyper dimensional fluid (superfluid?) - I wonder if this could correspond to the notion of the Higgs imparting mass to particles? I would be grateful if you (or anyone) can point out for me any inconsistency or errors in this thought experiment!