Talk:Michelson–Morley experiment

Math

I've removed two sections that were recently copied from Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special_Relativity/Aether#Mathematical_analysis_of_the_Michelson_Morley_Experiment). It's also partially redundant to the preceding and following sections (see Fallout). I would rather suggest to expand the already existing formulas, if necessary. --D.H (talk) 09:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Please restore it

All the math in the article shows why the experiment was expected to give a NON-NULL (incorrect) result. The section inserted shows the CORRECT interpretation, that confirms the NULL result. If you don't like it, I suggest that you edit it but do not delete it. Never mind, I see you added a link to the wikibooks section, this is good enough .

We much appreciate your efforts to improve the article. D.H has just finished some major rearrangements of the article to improve its logical flow, largely in response to your concerns. Thanks! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 15:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately,the article is missing a center piece, THE EXPLANATION OF THE NULL RESULT. It has all the wrong explanations but it misses the correct explanation. Not very good article, IMO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tach123 (talk • contribs) 15:44, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The explanation was of course already included in the "fallout" section under "length contraction and Lorentz transformation", which you probably overlooked. Therefore I moved it upwards. --D.H (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You mean this: "So while the light may indeed transit slower on that arm, it also ends up travelling a shorter distance that exactly cancels out the drift. Therefore the light propagation times in different directions become the same"? This is a terrible explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tach123 (talk • contribs) 16:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's very much "aether jargon". I agree that this can be better formulated in the context of special relativity, and accordingly rewrote this passage and included another. --D.H (talk) 16:54, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You should also note the historical context of the article: It demonstrates the search for aether drift and its failure, and then it shows the steps to reach the Lorentz transformation and Einstein's radical reinterpretation of the formulas. --D.H (talk) 17:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The title is "Michelson-Morley Experiment". There is a "historical" part, it is missing the "modern" explanation" (more exactly, the modern explanation is quite bad). By contrast, the wikibooks explanation I tried to add in is much better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tach123 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's what Wikipedia is all about. See what you and D.H can work out together to improve this section in a mutually agreeable fashion, while I (as usual) stick to the peripheral issues and the occasional custom illustration. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 18:07, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Please do remember that some of the Wikibooks material that you had pasted in was quite bad from an historical standpoint. Michelson, Morley, and most other early experimentalists had compelling reasons for performing their interferometric measurements using white light. We need a proper balance between historical and modern. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 18:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense mixed with non-sequitur. D.H. is contradicting you in his post below. Tach123 (talk) 21:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

What is non-sequitur? Did you or did you not paste in a section titled "Coherence length"? What do you claim to be nonsense? Michelson and Morley used sodium light only for aligning their apparatus, and performed their actual measurements in white light. They had very good reasons. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 21:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

In addition, the wikibooks explanation also consists 80% of historical aether formulas, and only 20% at the end is related to relativity and length contraction. It's simply impossible to describe the importance of the experiment without broad historical context. Actually, also the wikibooks formulas concerning relativity can be much more simplified, because with contraction one simply has ${\scriptstyle t_{1}={\frac {2L{\sqrt {1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}}{c}}{\frac {1}{1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}={\frac {2L}{c}}{\frac {1}{\sqrt {1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}}=t_{2}}$, independent of rotation. That's all. --D.H (talk) 18:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You need to DERIVE the above. I take it that you are quite happy with the wiki page and that you feel a sense of "ownership" towards it, so I am not going to waste my breath anymore. Tach123 (talk) 21:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)Tach123 (talk) 21:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

String theory and Planck length

Should have in See also ... String theory and Planck length --J. D. Redding 21:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why. That way just about everything should be in the See also. I have reverted for the reasons given. - DVdm (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Then there should be a mention in both. The detection is the point. --J. D. Redding 21:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's see what others say about this. - DVdm (talk) 21:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't buy into the wikiality. --J. D. Redding 22:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Rest assured, I only buy into wp:consensus. DVdm (talk) 08:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

1. The existing "See also" links have an obvious and direct relationship with the article, specifically mentioning Michelson–Morley.
2. While there is a relationship between String theory, Planck length and this article, this relationship is only apparent if you understand that at some scale, Lorentz invariance will be violated—certainly as one approaches the Planck length, but if you believe string theories, minute deviations may be measurable even with macroscopic measurements.
3. To date, cosmological speed-of-light measurements on gamma ray bursters presumably capable of detecting Planck-scale effects have not demonstrated any frequency-dependent variations in the speed of light. These measurements have nothing to do with Michelson–Morley.
4. To date, modern variants of the Michelson–Morley experiment have failed to detect directionally-dependent variations in the speed of light.
5. In my opinion, there is no justification at all for including a link to Planck length, and only weak justification for including a link to String theory.
6. The case for a link to the String theory article would be strengthened if the String theory article included an experimental section mentioning Michelson–Morley, equivalence principle tests, et cetera. It does not have such a section, but in my opinion it should, since existing equivalence principle measurements are of sufficient sensitivity so as to exclude a significant portion of the String theory landscape, and proposed experiments such as [STEP] have the potential of excluding most of the landscape. But there is no relationship between equivalence principle tests and Michelson–Morley.

Side note - "Excluding most of the landscape" is less impressive than it sounds. If the landscape comprises 10⁵⁰⁰ possibilities, give or take a few dozen orders of magnitude, excluding 99.9% of them would leave you with, (ahem!), 10⁵⁰⁰ possibilities, give or take a few dozen orders of magnitude. But at least most of the simpler, more straightforward variants of string theory could be excluded. As Witten has written, "It would be surprising if φ exists and would not be detected in an experiment that improves bounds on EP violations by 6 orders of magnitude" Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 18:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

1. My recommendation is to leave out these links. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Mirror reflection

Since there was a question concerning Qwerty123uiop's contribution in this section, I obtained a copy of Schumacher, Richard A. (1994). "Special relativity and the Michelson–Morley interferometer". American Journal of Physics. 62: 609. with the url pointing to my Google Drive account. I will leave sharing turned on for no more than two or three days, long enough for those interested in copyediting Qwerty123uiop's contribution to download the file as a reference. However, the paper is a copyrighted article, and for me to leave it up any longer than that would be a violation of fair use. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:05, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I have turned off sharing. The link to the paper no longer works. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:07, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

The reflection problem was also discussed in the early 1900s. For instance by Hicks [Phil. Mag., S. 6, Vol. 3, 1902], which was clarified by Morley/Miller: "s:On the Theory of Experiments to detect Aberrations of the Second Degree" (Phil. Mag., S. 6, Vol. 9)

As far as I know, the first fully relativistic treatment was given by Bateman: "The Reflexion of Light at an Ideal Plane Mirror moving with a Uniform Velocity of Translation", Phil. Mag., S. 6, Vol. 18: 890-895. --D.H (talk) 19:17, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll see if I have time to look up the Hicks and the Bateman papers this weekend! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 20:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Hicks drew some erroneous conclusions, because he thought that the modified reflection angles would probably invalidate the conclusions of Michelson. He also misunderstood the role of length contraction by making a sign error in his calculations. For a historical analysis of Hicks etc., see Swenson Etheral Aether, ch. 7.

Another criticism of the experiment concerning reflection was given by Kohl (1909, Ann. d. Phys. 333 (2), 259-307), which was refuted by Laue s:Translation:Is the Michelson Experiment Conclusive?. And another one by Budde (1911, Physik. Zeitschrift, 12, 979-991), and again refuted by Laue s:Translation:On the Theory of the Michelson Experiment.

However, describing those discussions in the article would probably give undue weight to this episode. --D.H (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no analysis that takes into account the real conditions of the experiment

Michelson perform these measurements in the air, not in vacuo. Therefore, any proposals, statements, drawn from the results of the experiments are complete worth nothing - pure stupidity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.10.151.163 (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Current repetitions of this experiment are, of course, all performed in high vacuum. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

And please note that article talk pages are for discussing the article, not the content. See wp:talk page guidelines. - DVdm (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

In vacuum must be null shift, and Lorentz explained this long time ago. The experiments in the air show obviously non-null results, thus the cause must be the media itself, or refraction index: n > 1. So, where are the repetitions of the experiments, which go to the direction to really resolve the problem?

If a small refractive index of air gives something like 8 km/s, then what is expected for a medium with bigger refractive index, for example water has: n = 1.333 ?

There was no one scientist in the world, for 100 years, who noticed this, and didn't want to check this experimentally!? Unbelievable! If it's true, then the real science don't exist at all; this can be only pseudoscience, or somethin worse.

And for discussing the article:

Article don't contains correct formula, which applies for the Michelson experiment.

This formula should depend on the refractive index of the media, in which have been performed the measurements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.29.11.187 (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Please sign your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.

The article seems to be properly sourced. If you want to challenge the content, you need to bring wp:reliable sources to support your position. Otherwise this is just your original research (see wp:NOR), and bringing that here would be disruptive. - DVdm (talk) 21:43, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Again! Again, calculations for the vacuum does not allow to draw any conclusions for the experiment carried out in air (n = 1.0003).

Thus, all these categorical statements about the alleged zero as a result, should be removed.

There is no correct analysis of the experiment, so no grounds to draw tangible conclusions!

I would add that it's easy to modify the experiment to get the shift proportional to the first-order (v/c), that is, very clearly, and with virtually no error. The results of the Michelson is not zero, contrary to appearances, as indeed is evident even from the point of view of statistics: zero result means the average is zero, because the average does not depend on the variance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.5.113.239 (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Please sign your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~).

See my previous reply. - DVdm (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

What your previous reply? Don't play an idiot.

Your article don't provide any links to the sources with a new statistical theory, in which an average of distribution depends on variance.

Include the neccesery links, or delete all these unsupported scientifically claims about the null result!

Otherwise I will be obliged to destroy the whole subject, as anti-scientific popaganda, a type of creationism, eugenics, geocentric dogma, ect.

I'm wiking! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.10.118.35 (talk) 21:57, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Please sign your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~), and use proper indentation to thread message sections—see wp:INDENT. I have fixed the above conversation accordingly.

See the previous reply, which said:

Please sign your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.

The article seems to be properly sourced. If you want to challenge the content, you need to bring wp:reliable sources to support your position. Otherwise this is just your original research (see wp:NOR), and bringing that here would be disruptive. - DVdm (talk) 21:43, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Additionaly, you might have a look at wp:CIVIL, wp:OWN (i.o.w. this is not my article—see history), wp:CONSENSUS, wp:POINT: planning to "destroy the whole subject" might not be your best bet. - DVdm (talk) 07:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

How do I point out that the architecture of the information in this article is confoundingly obscure?

The lede bypasses the reason for the experiment, ignoring all context, and goes headlong into who knows where. Can someone who cares about this rise to the fore?

Reliable reference?

I hardly think Hoover, Earl R. (1977). Cradle of Greatness: National and World Achievements of Ohio's Western Reserve. Cleveland: Shaker Savings Association. is a reliable unbiased reference for the claim that their physical experiment was "the moving-off point for the theoretical aspects of the Second Scientific Revolution". It's so herp a derp American just like the edison page.