ABSTRACT
But wait-there is the possibility that the earth carries along with it in its flight through space a sort of atmosphere of ether as it does of air. We must first get rid of this possibility by a preliminary ex periment to see if a swiftly moving mass of matter does catch up and carry along with it a little of the ether. This would cause a sort of an eddy or disturb ance in the ether in the neighbourhood of the moving mass as a boat disturbs the water. For instance, a ray of light passing close to a rapidly revolving wheel would be a little deflected and show a distorted image. Sir Oliver Lodge tried this experiment and got negative results. That is, moving matter does not
disturb or carry with it the ether. Consequently, it would seem, we are left to the only other logical alternative, that the ether drifts through matter and we should expect to detect this drift by measuring the speed of light in the direction of the earth’s motion. It ought to take longer for light to travel from one point to another if the earth meantime is moving away from the first point and it ought to take less time if the earth is moving toward it. Well, Michelson and Morley tried this experiment-and also got negative results! It did not make any difference whether the ray of light was sent in the direction of the earth’s movement or the reverse or across the line, it travelled invariably at the same speed, 186,000 miles a second. Here then were two unquestionable experiments apparently contradicting each other. One proved that the ether did not travel with the earth. The other proved that the ether did not stand still while the earth travelled through it.
