Ether & the Hafele-Keating Experiment

David,

If the Earth rotates in a non-rotating ether, and if the ether determines c, then wouldn't the MM experment have detected it?

If the ether and the Earth rotate together, then the MM test should yield null results, but if the test were repeated in a satellite moving relative to the Earth's surface (or for that matter, in an airplane), would we then get a positive result?

I'm new to this, so if I make a naive mistake (or a dumb mistake), please look at it as an oportunity to demonstrate your teaching ability.

john duff

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by johnduff</i>
<br />David,

If the Earth rotates in a non-rotating ether, and if the ether determines c, then wouldn't the MM experment have detected it?
...
I'm new to this, so if I make a naive mistake (or a dumb mistake), please look at it as an oportunity to demonstrate your teaching ability.

john duff
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

It might have. The common report is that MM achieved a “null” result, but they actually achieved a very small result that was much less than they expected. This could be accounted for by the rotation speed being much slower than the orbital speed. Other later experimenters claim they detected the rotation speed, but mainstreamers deny it because they still believe in the “constancy of the speed of light” error of SR theory. The mainstreamers don’t seem to realize that Einstein admitted in 1911-1915 papers that the “constancy” postulate turned out to be invalid. I have his papers right here in front of me in Volume 2 of his “Collected Papers”. There was no Einstein “constancy postulate” after 1912.

Don’t worry about making “dumb” mistakes. JPL made a dumb mistake in sending a spacecraft to Mars using metric numbers while the agency that developed the numbers were using English miles. The $250 million dollar spacecraft hit the surface of Mars going too fast.

john,

Here is a copy of the 1887 Michelson-Morley paper. Why don’t you study it and see what you can get out of it. See if you can find something other people have missed.

www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html#michelson1

Note at the bottom of page 10 they say the experiment might detect an ether if it is conducted on a high mountain top. So they knew they needed to get their apparatus up off the surface of the earth.

Notice at the top of that page they said that the fringe shift result was probably less than 1/40th of what they expected.

David,

Thanks for the MM report. I appreciate it. By the way, can you imagine preparing the invironmental impact statement for that test? All that Mercury sitting around in the open? OSHA and the EPA would positively have a litter of kittens.

As far as the test goes, there appears to be a limited number of possibilities.

1) There is no Aether. The speed of light is constant for all observers, regardless of the observers state of motion. Predict null result from MM test.

2) The Earth is moving through the Aether. Speed of light varies. MM test should yield positive results. It didn't.

3) Aether is entrained by the Earth, making relative speed zero. MM test should be null.

4) Aether is entrained by the Earth, but is not rotating with the Earth. The MM aparatus would have a speed relative to the Aether of about 700 miles/hour in Boston, which is below the sensitivity of the test as performed by M and M.

5) The Aether is entrained by the Earth, and is rotating with the Earth. No test on the Earth will detect a motion.

The trick of the test would seem to be to get the aparatus moving relative to the Earth. Modern instruments are so fabulously sensitive that a jet plane might be able to do the track. If not, then go for an orbiting satelite, the closer to Earth, the better.

Thanks again for the MM report.

john duff

john,

My opinion is, #1 can’t be true. In my opinion, #2 should be qualified, the earth is moving through a “greater ether” (ie the sun’s ether) while carrying its own local ether along with it, out to several thousand miles from the earth’s surface. If so, MM would still get a null result. As for #3, I would say this is an old and incorrect idea from the 19th Century. I would say the earth “generates” its own “local ether”, rather than “entraining” some sort of “universal ether”. Such as the way the earth “generates” its own gravity field, rather than “entraining” the gravity fields of space.

I can’t decide about #4 but I’m leaning toward non-rotation of the earth’s local ether, much like the earth’s local magnetosphere does not rotate with the earth. It always points at the sun.

#5, I would think this could be determined by some east-west light speed tests, also #4 could be tested that way.

FILMS OF GOLD SHOW ELECTRONIC WAVES
www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc98/10_24_98/timeline.htm
And this article
www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue59/adissidentview.html
I might say there was at least a basic something that you can reference
to obtain a direction and speed of travel for the local solar system.