The Michelson and Morley 1887 Experiment and the Discovery of Absolute Motion

TL;DR

This paper reinterprets the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment data, suggesting it actually detected absolute motion with a speed over 300km/s, challenging the traditional view of it as a null result and indicating a breakdown of Newtonian physics.

Contribution

It provides a new analysis of the Michelson-Morley data, showing it revealed absolute motion and the failure of Newtonian calibration, supported by subsequent experiments.

Findings

Original data indicated a speed of ~8 km/s using Newtonian calibration.

Reanalysis suggests a true speed >300 km/s after relativistic effects considered.

Six subsequent experiments confirmed detection of absolute motion.

Abstract

Physics textbooks assert that in the famous interferometer 1887 experiment to detect absolute motion Michelson and Morley saw no rotation-induced fringe shifts - the signature of absolute motion; it was a null experiment. However this is incorrect. Their published data revealed to them the expected fringe shifts, but that data gave a speed of some 8km/s using a Newtonian theory for the calibration of the interferometer, and so was rejected by them solely because it was less than the 30km/s orbital speed of the earth. A 2002 post relativistic-effects analysis for the operation of the device however gives a different calibration leading to a speed >300km/s. So this experiment detected both absolute motion and the breakdown of Newtonian physics. So far another six experiments have confirmed this first detection of absolute motion in 1887.