A Refinement of the Michelson-Morley Experiment

Abstract

The investigation which is the subject of this paper was undertaken to test the conclusions recently drawn by Professor D. C. Miller from his repetition of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Professor Miller interprets his observations as indicating a motion of the sun through the ether with a velocity not less, than 200 kilometers per second in a direction about right ascension 262 degrees, declination 65 degrees. He supposes that a contraction of the apparatus in the direction of motion occurs, which, however, departs from that given by the formula of Lorentz and Fitzgerald by an amount corresponding to a velocity of about 10 kilometers per second. That is, the average shift of the interference pattern, as an arm of his interferometer is turned through 90 degrees from the direction perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the inferred drift, is such as would be expected if the velocity of the apparatus were 10 kilometers per second and no contraction occurred. In his paper in Science, April 30, 1926, he seems to have abandoned the idea that the magnitude of the indicated velocity depends on the altitude above sea level at which the observations are made. Such results as his, modifying as they would the fundamental physical concepts, require the fullest experimental confirmation.