scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Michelson-MorleyExperiment.html
The mirrors are placed at right a ngles to each other and at equal distance from the glass plate, which is obliquely oriented at an angle of 45 relative to the two mirrors. In t he original device, the mirrors were mounted on a rigid base that rotate s freely on a basin filled with liquid mercury in order to reduce fricti on.
It would therefore follow that it should appear to be moving fr om the perspective of an observer on the sun-orbiting Earth. As a result , light would sometimes travel in the same direction of the ether, and o thers times in the opposite direction.
ether relative to Earth, thus establishing its existence. Michelson and Morley were able to measure the speed of light by looking f or interference fringes between the light which had passed through the t wo perpendicular arms of their apparatus. These would occur since the li ght would travel faster along an arm if oriented in the "same" direction as the ether was moving, and slower if oriented in the opposite directi on. Since the two arms were perpendicular, the only way that light would travel at the same speed in both arms and therefore arrive simultaneous at the telescope would be if the instrument were motionless with respec t to the ether. If not, the crests and troughs of the light waves in the two arms would arrive and interfere slightly out of synchronization, pr oducing a diminution of intensity.
The Principle of Relativit y: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity. Reprinted form Lorentz, H A Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Krpern. Michelson, A A "The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous A ether." Michelson, A A and Morley, E W "On the Relative Motion of the Earth a nd the Luminiferous Ether." Michelson, A A and Morley, E W "On the Relative Motion of the Earth a nd the Luminiferous Aether."
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