Why the Michelson-Morley is so tricky!

Frank Russo - September 16, 2011.

The Michelson-Morley was very tricky to unfathom for one simple reason, and that is that the orbital interval is not neatly subdivided into a basic component for light and one for the motion of the apparatus!

The critical complication was that a portion of the apparatus motion, is also a part of the basic light component... in other words there is an intersection zone of the two components. Hence, although the orbital speed is 53,198,115.45 m/sec, the actual portion of the orbital speed which is orbital only and outside the intersection zone with the basic light component, is 49,272,606.19 m/sec. This obviously has a tendency to lengthen the orbital component, for the lower the denominator is, the longer the interval that the fraction denotes!

This adjustment of the denominator is of course not fudging it, because a compensating adjustment is made to the numerator from the lengthening of the contracted arm which is  10.66420099m to the 10.83079918 m which is the equal of the perpendicular arm! Hence the numerator would become 2.091,124,102 m as opposed to the 2.257,722,293 m which it would be if the orbital arm remained contracted.

In conclusion then, to be able to balance the times one must appreciate the complication that is brought about by rotating a basic light component of 11 metres from the perpendicular to the orbital... thus resulting in an overlap zone of 0.169,200,818 m because of the geometrical rearrangement of the 11 metres to become 10.830,799,18 metres.

This has all been explained in my past expressed ideas, but I just thought it would be helpful to mention it again in a clearer way so that everybody can understand it.

Frank Russo.

p.s. - the above applies to the orbital with the wind rather than the orbital into the wind: as it is the former that is by far the trickiest!  

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