Let's Discuss The Michelson Morley Experiment

Issues:
1) In the attached image you have two distinct beam paths: l1 and l2. If you have variable aether modifier k you end up with the travel times t = (l*k)+(l*(1/k)). In each case the scalar k cancels itself out precisely by having the beam inverted for each moment of time. This is to say: whether there is aether motion relative to an observer or not, this experiment CANNOT possibly detect it.

2) The issue is that it presume relative aether motion from the viewpoint of an observer. This, while not necessarily wrong, is fucking dumb to assume for two reasons.
2.a) We're traveling at about 30km/s through the solar system, which is moving about 230km/s through the galaxy, which is moving at about 600km/s through the universe. This adds up to an expected ~860km/s we're moving through the universe, at variable rates in different directions. If there were ANY kind of aether drag (i.e. anything capable of influencing matter) it would have to be undetectably small (even by the difference in momentum light would impart on surrounding matter.)
2.b) If there were any detectable aether drag we've been flying through the universe for some 13.8 billion years. The photon has an incredibly small amount of inertia it imparts when emitted or absorbed, but it is nowhere near small enough that we would not have come to a stop by now.

3) If we're floating in an aether which carries with it inertia in any degree (i.e. capable of AT LEAST impacting the speed of light to a detectable level) then we would have developed a pressure bubble of aether by this point (remember the whole idea is based on waves traveling in water - waves by nature have pressure associated and there is no reason to suspect that giant waves don't exist just as tiny photon-sized waves would.) There would be no relative motion on Earth, or even in the solar system at a detectable level because we would be effectively sitting inside an aether pressure bubble of uniform motion.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson–Morley_experiment#Light_path_analysis_and_consequences
twitter.com/AnonBabble

>If you have variable aether modifier k
Define your terms. If you're going to make up a concept you need to a lot more explaining.

>If there were ANY kind of aether drag (i.e. anything capable of influencing matter) it would have to be undetectably small (even by the difference in momentum light would impart on surrounding matter.)
Aether drag was a way to explain the lack of the aether wind from MM. If you claim it is small (by logic which is not clear) then you just disproved your own argument. Secondly if you believe your first claim that MM doesn't disprove an aether then any talk of aether drag is completely redundant. Your argument makes no sense, your other two points are equally impenetrable to logic.

sweet jesus, the amount of stupid in this post hurts my soul

>yfw aether theory was right all along

FINALLY a decent physics thre-
>reads OP
...I'll just let myself out.

>Define your terms. If you're going to make up a concept you need to a lot more explaining.
I did define the terms and nothing is made up, it's basic algebra. To reiterate:
l = length of run
t = time
k = scalar value you expect to detect
You have mirrors bouncing the light back in the Michelson Morley experiment, so your total length for each arm is l*2 but your modifier k is likewise running backwards half that trip (1/k.) Think of it as trying to swim up a slow moving river and back down a slow moving river the same distance - it's going to take the exact same time as it would take to swim in a still body of water the same distance.

>Aether drag was a way to explain the lack of the aether wind from MM. If you claim it is small (by logic which is not clear) then you just disproved your own argument. Secondly if you believe your first claim that MM doesn't disprove an aether then any talk of aether drag is completely redundant. Your argument makes no sense, your other two points are equally impenetrable to logic.
There are hundreds of variations on aether theory. Aether drag is expected under normal conditions only in variations wherein the aether isn't moving along with us, which is a logically retarded thing to assume (pretty much like saying if you toss a raft in a river it will feel the river under it - you're assuming you're anchored to something with that statement which is absurd if it's just floating downstream.)

Feel free to point any of it out, or go back to stuffing dragon dildos up your ass. Either way.

Before you leave, would intertial frame dragging be seen in an MM experiment?

>2.b) If there were any detectable aether drag we've been flying through the universe for some 13.8 billion years. The photon has an incredibly small amount of inertia it imparts when emitted or absorbed, but it is nowhere near small enough that we would not have come to a stop by now.
I don't really know if it's understood that a point in earth is traveling at the same speed it was traveling at 13 billion years ago
even if it's understood, you're arbitrarily ruling out the possibility that aether drag is actually that small

I'm ruling out nothing, I'm stating it's retarded to rule things out across all of physics for an experiment with so many logical flaws. Any one of the mentioned issues would be enough to invalidate the current interpretation of the Michelson-Morley results in whole. If I missed a complementary counter-axiom (sorry for the double-negative, but it fits in context) in my analysis that's entirely possible, but considering it wasn't included in the analysis of the Michelson-Morley experiment as it was it is irrelevant to the discussion of flaws with the interpretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Nice.

sure boss, just first put together a coherent argument using math instead of head-canon mumbo jumbo like "variable aether modifier" and "pressure bubbles of aether".

Here, let me help you. The experiment interferes two beams of light that travel two different paths, per your image; path 1 = "source -> Ms -> M1 -> Ms -> detector", and path 2 = "source -> Ms -> M2 -> Ms -> detector". Since the "source -> Ms" and "Ms -> detector" segments are common to both paths, they can be ignored. So let's compute the times it takes for light to propagate the length of the remaining portions of the other two paths.

For path 1, the beam is assumed to be orthogonal to the aether wind velocity [eqn]v[/eqn], and therefore does not affect travel time. If this is not true, one can either reorient the experiment to see if there is any noticeable change (there isn't). That means the travel time is the twice the length of [eqn]L_1[/eqn] divided by the speed of light.

[math] t_1 = \frac{2L_1}{c}[/math]

For path 2, the aether wind modifies the speed of light. When going down the first part of [eqn]L_2[/eqn], the speed is [eqn](c-v)[/eqn], and on the return trip it is [eqn](c+v)[/eqn], so we find

[math] t_2 = \frac{L_2}{c-v} + \frac{L_2}{c+v} = \frac{2cL_2}{c^2-v^2}[/math]

as you can see, if there is no motion relative to the ether wind, then this second equation reduces to the first equation, as expected.

by rotating the experiment, these travel times change, and if the aether exists, so will the interference pattern. This is not observed.

btw your argument that's it dumb to assume motion relative to the aether is actual an argument that we must be moving relative to it, retard

You're treating the "aether" as "space," it's not. This is why the Michelson-Morley interferometer works to detect gravity waves, those distort space.

If you're attempting to measure relative motion of the aether you at the least need a loop rather than an inverted path, which of course produces the Sagnac effect when rotated (i.e. is something observed when you induce relative aether motion.) The basis for the Fizeau experiment alone is enough to disprove your idiotic notion that aether theory was set on the principle of an aether with relative motion.

You people just really don't want to accept the fact that some things in life are absolute, do you?

>quantum mechanics
>absolute

There are absolutes in quantum mechanics. For instance, the neutron is unable to decay into anything other than a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino.

>You're treating the "aether" as "space," it's not
the whole point of the aether theory was to understand what medium carries em radiation and its necessary properties (like how bulk materials carry acoustic waves), because it was unsettling that vacuum (supposedly nothing) could support wave like phenomenon.

>If you're attempting to measure relative motion of the aether
I'm not, I'm just positioning one of the arms in the direction of aether motion.

if you think aether theory is useful, name one experimental observation not explained by relativity that is explained by aether theory.

Aether theory is 100% absolutes. Quantum mechanics is a jumble of statistical subjectivism.

>the whole point of the aether theory was to understand what medium carries em radiation and its necessary properties (like how bulk materials carry acoustic waves), because it was unsettling that vacuum (supposedly nothing) could support wave like phenomenon.
And then? That doesn't mean aether is space, it just means it's the medium in which light is transmitted.
>I'm not, I'm just positioning one of the arms in the direction of aether motion.
Do you want to play with semantics or talk about science? The whole point of the experiment was to measure relative motion of the aether. There have been other experiments to measure an induced-relative motion of aether which have shown positive results. Whether this is due to the experimental design or a non-relative aether motion is still up for debate (the Michelson-Morley experiment is incapable of detecting relative aether motion regardless, which is why Morley worked on the Fizeau experimental design, ultimately yielding a measurement which wasn't zero.)
>if you think aether theory is useful, name one experimental observation not explained by relativity that is explained by aether theory.
You're looking at it incorrectly. Aether theory predicts everything relativity does, therefore they are equal by default. The difference comes when you get into Maxwell's original equations (before Heaviside rejiggered them into vector calculus because "muh quaternions are hard.") The stuff neglected in the Heaviside equations (mostly scalar terms) is what relativity doesn't account for.

i never said aether is space in any post. it is assumed to be a material with a spatial distribution that carries em waves, similar to how a solid can carry acoustic waves. The whole idea is based on this thinking.

>Do you want to play with semantics or talk about science?
MM experiment and Sagnac effect are completely different experiments. Sagnac you are actively rotating the experiment, while once MM is aligned, no rotation needs to take place to observe an effect (imagine moving the system parallel to the aether velocity). If you can't distinguish the two, and claim it's semantics and details, you have learned nothing from these experiments.

>You're looking at it incorrectly. Aether theory predicts everything relativity does, therefore they are equal by default
how can you say that without putting forth a mathematical theory? also, supposing their is such a theory, if they really do predict the same things as you claim, they will be mathematically equivalent. clearly you can't think of ONE counter example, so you deflect by claiming your head-canon-physics are automatically equivalent without substantiation.

>MM experiment and Sagnac effect are completely different experiments. Sagnac you are actively rotating the experiment
This was my whole fucking point.
>If you can't distinguish the two, and claim it's semantics and details, you have learned nothing from these experiments.
Are you really so dim as to be unable to relate an experimental setup to the things it is attempting to measure vs what it is capable of measuring? The whole point of mentioning the Sagnac effect and the apparatus to demonstrate it was that the MM apparatus cannot possibly measure a relative aether motion when there is no relative aether motion whereas the apparatus to test the Sagnac effect can demonstrate a relative aether motion by inducing relative motion.
>how can you say that without putting forth a mathematical theory
See Maxwell's original 20 equations (not the vector format Heaviside reduced them into.)
>also, supposing their is such a theory, if they really do predict the same things as you claim, they will be mathematically equivalent
Not remotely true. QM and relativity match up with the reduced form of the Maxwell equations (after heaviside dropped all the scalar components from them in his conversion to vector calculus.) The original equations can be extended easily to all of QM, relativity and a fuckload more.
>clearly you can't think of ONE counter example, so you deflect by claiming your head-canon-physics are automatically equivalent without substantiation.
I've mentioned several, often several times, you're too much of a zealot to take a moment and read.

These are all valid concerns, and your analysis is correct. People still do this experiment even today and they find the same thing.

>See Maxwell's original 20 equations (not the vector format Heaviside reduced them into.)
they are mathematically equivalent. unless you can demonstrate otherwise, clearly you are a troll or retarded

>dropping all the scalar components
>mathematically equivalent
No. The reason time travel and wormholes and shit are paradoxes in relativity is because it doesn't account for the terms that explain them.

Hell, the Woodward effect alone should be enough of a proof, if not the EMDrive. Things undergoing acceleration or deceleration are not properly accounted for in relativity or QM.

>k = scalar value you expect to detect
If k is a scalar then your original equation is dimensionally incorrect.

> your total length for each arm is l*2 but your modifier k is likewise running backwards half that trip (1/k.)
No. That is not how propagation in a medium works. This scalar is totally unphysical, it's obvious from the fact you had to make it a scalar just to insert it into the equation. If it is a scalar how does it know when the light is moving upstream or downstream? It can't. It is nonsense. Waves in a medium to not travel at x ms one way and 1/x the other.

No. in the correct MM experiment the light travels at c+u in one direction and c-u in the other, there is no "aether modifier". You're debating a strawman. Why don't you actually look up how the derivation is done in reality.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson–Morley_experiment#Light_path_analysis_and_consequences

>Aether drag is expected under normal conditions only in variations wherein the aether isn't moving along with us

No again. Aether drag was inserted after Ariy's measurements. It's not expected, it was inserted to reconcile the model with observations.

>If it is a scalar how does it know when the light is moving upstream or downstream?
It doesn't, that's the point retard. The experiment wasn't capable of testing for an aether moving along with the Earth - that's the whole reason Morley later developed the experiment to test an aether which moves along with the Earth without relative motion (which showed positive results, learn to read you hack.)

>It doesn't, that's the point retard.
Then you agree your original equation was complete nonsense and your whole argument is bullshit? Great.

Maybe you should decide what your argument actually is.

> The experiment wasn't capable of testing for an aether moving along with the Earth -
No the lab, not just the Earth. And nobody disagrees with that but that is not the point you are making above.

>whether there is aether motion relative to an observer or not, this experiment CANNOT possibly detect it.

Again, make up your mind.

>Then you agree your original equation was complete nonsense and your whole argument is bullshit? Great.
No, you retard. The original equation is what you would expect from an aether with relative motion. k would be the ratio of change in either direction. This is because the speed of light and relative distance would change, not just one.
>No the lab, not just the Earth. And nobody disagrees with that but that is not the point you are making above.
It was in the original list of points, cunt.
>Again, make up your mind.
The post points out flaws in the experiment, all the flaws. It even states some of those flaws may not work in conjunction with eachother. Again, learn to read.

classical em is unique in that it is AUTOMATICALLY compatible with relativity. in fact, it was the strange fact that you can derive wave equations from maxwell's equations and the speed of light pops out that was the impetus for aether theory, because the question naturally arises "what is the speed of light relative to?". In a material like a solid, the speed is relative the the material, hence people thought "gee whiz, space must be permeated by some sort of material that can support em waves". This thinking is exactly what lead to the MM experiment because people wanted to measure this material and its properties.

Specifically for the electric field in vacuum (no source currents or charge, so div(E) = 0 ):
[math]\nabla \times \vec{E} = - \frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t}[/math]
[math]\nabla \times \left( \nabla \times \vec{E} \right) = \nabla \times \left( - \frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t} \right)[/math]
[math]\nabla \nabla \cdot \vec{E} - \nabla^2 \vec{E} = - \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \nabla \times \vec{B} [/math]
[math]- \nabla^2 \vec{E} = - \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \mu_0 \epsilon_0 \frac{\partial \vec{E}}{\partial t}[/math]
[math]\nabla^2 \vec{E} - \mu_0 \epsilon_0 \frac{\partial^2 \vec{E}}{\partial t^2} = \vec{0}[/math]
[math]\left( \nabla^2 - \frac{1}{c^2} \frac{\partial^2}{\partial t^2} \right) \vec{E} = \vec{0}[/math]

where

[math]c = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mu_0 \epsilon_0}}[/math]

the MM experiment and others tried to understand what this c was relative to which was supposedly the aether, however the negative results from these experiments, and the later development of relativity, explained the results as the speed of light (and time) being relative to the reference frame being used, resolving the mystery. The above theory doesn't change, just our understanding of what c represents.

classical mechanics, on the other hand, needs to be completely reformulated.

>The original equation is what you would expect from an aether with relative motion. k would be the ratio of change in either direction.
No. The wikipedia derivation is what you expect for an aether with relative motion. Your equation is nonsensical (see the scalar argument). It's wrong. Also:

> t = (l*k)+(l*(1/k)) = l*(1+k)/k

k doesn't cancel here.

>This is because the speed of light and relative distance would change

Why don't you actually try deriving this equation from physics instead of pulling it out of your ass? If you want to prove it isn't completely meaningless then go ahead.

> t = (l*k)+(l*(1/k)) = l*(1+k**2)/k