Volume 19: Pages 359-369, 2006

A. Michelson's Ether Drift Experiments from the Viewpoint of Voigt Kinematics

Albert G. Gluckman ¹

¹Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 U.S.A.

This is a study of the classical ether drift experiment of Michelson and Morley from the viewpoint of the kinematics of the Voigt coordinate transformations. The inverse and direct transformations exhibit distinctively different kinematical pictures to the observer. These two models, one based upon the direct, the other upon the inverse, transformations, are not a viable alternative to the kinematics of special relativity. It is interesting that both of these Voigt kinematical models accommodate the failure to detect ether drift. Also, both (with their underlying inverse or direct transformations) can equally be chosen to correspond to the direction of motion of the closed Keplerian orbit of Earth.

Keywords: ether drift, Voigt kinematics, Michelson interferometer, Milo F. Podlaha, congruent clocks of E.A. Milne, Newtonian kinematics, absolute time, Voigt transformations, clock of direct Voigt transformations, advance of Earth in its orbit under Voigt kinematics

Received: June 27, 2005; Published Online: December 15, 2008