Absolute Motion

[Jacques]

Physics, abstract physics/0508174, The Michelson and Morley 1887 Experiment and the Discovery of Absolute Motion wrote:

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.

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0508174

 

This is an article that claim that using lenght contraction to calibrate the Michelson and Morley instrument, the data prove absolute motion !

 

I am not an expert but it look to me very convincing. I would like to know what expert think of it.

Thanks

[swansont]

There was a run that did yield an 8 km/sec result, but they (and others) redid the experiment with more sensitive apparati and got null results. Except one guy, whose name escapes me at the moment, who did the experiments in a tent and kept getting a nonzero result - but nobody could reproduce his results, and the consensus was that it was systematic effects.

[Jacques]

Does the results of the runs, been analysed like the autor of the paper, Reginald T. Cahill, say

using a Newtonian theory for the calibration of the interferometer

I think that to be consistent a calibration using the Loretz contration must be used to analyse the data.

One thing in his paper that bug me is that he claim that in vacuum the result need to be null.

Their are other experiments:

coaxial cable Radio Frequency (RF) travel time variations measured by DeWitte in Brussels in 1991,

... who support absolute motion, does these experiments repeatable ?

 

Does the arxiv.org a good reference for main stream science ? Or is it a freak, fringe or alternative... archives ?

Where can I find reliable articles ? Or may be it doesn't exist

[swansont]

AFAIK arxiv does not do peer-review, and the journal in which Cahill's paper was published is also not peer-reviewed.