About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 132. Chapters: Afshar experiment, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, Atwood machine, Barton's Pendulums, Bedford Level experiment, Beverly Clock, Cavendish experiment, Davisson-Germer experiment, Delayed choice quantum eraser, De Sitter double star experiment, Double-slit experiment, Eddy current brake, Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester, Eotvos experiment, Experiments of Rayleigh and Brace, Faraday's ice pail experiment, Fizeau experiment, Fizeau-Foucault apparatus, Forced Rayleigh scattering, Franck-Hertz experiment, Fuji Molten Salt Reactor, Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment, Geiger-Marsden experiment, GlueX, Gravity Probe A, Gravity Probe B, Hafele-Keating experiment, Hammar experiment, Heron's fountain, Homestake experiment, Hot chocolate effect, Hughes-Drever experiment, India-based Neutrino Observatory, Ionocraft, Ives-Stilwell experiment, Kaufmann-Bucherer-Neumann experiments, Keck Array, Kelvin water dropper, Kennedy-Thorndike experiment, Kite experiment, Lariat chain, List of experimental errors and frauds in physics, Long Duration Exposure Facility, Magdeburg hemispheres, Magnetization reversal by circularly polarized light, Measurements of neutrino speed, Michelson-Gale-Pearson experiment, Michelson-Morley experiment, Millimeter Anisotropy eXperiment IMaging Array, Modern searches for Lorentz violation, Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment, Mousetrap car, Nth Country Experiment, Oil drop experiment, Oxford Electric Bell, Pascal's barrel, Pitch drop experiment, PLUTO experiments, POLYGON experiment, Pound-Rebka experiment, Pressure experiment, QMAP, Quantum eraser experiment, Rubens' tube, Romer's determination of the speed of light, Sagnac effect, Schiehallion experiment, Sodium bicarbonate rocket, Spouting can, Stern-Gerlach experiment, Terrella, Tests of relativistic energy and momentum, Tests of special relativity, Test theory, The E and B Experiment, Time dilation of moving particles, TopHat (telescope), Trouton-Noble experiment, Trouton-Rankine experiment, Two-balloon experiment, Water thread experiment. Excerpt: The Michelson-Morley experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. It attempted to detect the relative motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous aether ("aether wind"). The negative results are generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the then prevalent aether theory, and initiated a line of research that eventually led to special relativity, in which the stationary aether concept has no role. The experiment has been referred to as "the moving-off point for the theoretical aspects of the Second Scientific Revolution." Michelson-Morley type experiments have been repeated many times with steadily increasing sensitivity. These include experiments from 1902 to 1905, and a series of experiments in the 1920s. In addition, recent resonator experiments have confirmed the absence of any aether wind at the 10 level. Together with the Ives-Stilwell and Kennedy-Thorndike experiments, it forms one of the fundamental tests of special relativity theory. Physics theories of the late 19th century assumed that just as surface water waves must have an intervening substance, i.e. a "medium," to move across (in this case water), and audible sound requires a medium to transmit its wave motions (such as air or water), so light must also require a medium, the "luminiferous aether," to transmit its wave motions. Because light can travel through a vacuum, it was assumed that even a vacuum must be filled with aether. Since the speed of light is so great, and as material bodies pass through the aether without obvious friction or drag, the aether was assumed to have a highly unusual combination of properties. Designing...
