Abstract
OF all the attempts made to detect a possible influence of the motion of the medium on optical phenomena, the only one giving a positive result, was the celebrated experiment of Fizeau, in which interference was produced between two beams of light which passed along tubes containing- running water, the one beam going with the current and the other beam against it. When the direction of the current was reversed the bands were displaced, and the displacement could be explained on the assumption that the ether in the tubes drifted with the current with a velocity v(1 - 12), where v is the velocity of the water. Fizeau obtained a 14 per cent, agreement between theory and experiment, which was regarded as satisfactory in view of the difficulty of the subject. The experiment was afterwards repeated by Michelson and Morley with more refined means, and they obtained a difference of less than i per cent, with a calculated probable error of about 5 per cent.
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Optical Investigation of Ether-Drift . Nature 96, 430–431 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096430a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096430a0