Michelson-Morley experiment

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noun

an experiment first performed in 1887 by A. A. Michelson and E. W. Morley, in which an interferometer was used to attempt to detect a difference in the velocities of light in directions parallel and perpendicular to the earth's motion. The negative result was explained by the special theory of relativity

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Example Sentences

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The American Physical Society calls the Michelson-Morley experiment “what might be regarded as the most famous failed experiment to date.”

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But the famous Michelson-Morley experiment demonstrated that such an aether does not exist.

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There is no need to introduce the idea of an ether, whose presence anyway cannot be detected, as the Michelson-Morley experiment showed.

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The famous Michelson-Morley experiment attempted to measure a change in the speed of light depending on the Earth’s motion around the Sun, but failed to find any change.

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Its inception sprang from the Michelson-Morley experiment, made in a laboratory in Cleveland, which showed that motion of the earth through the ether of space could not be detected.

From

Michelson Michener

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