iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Michelson is best known for the experiment conducted with Edward Morley, attempting to detect Earth’s motion through a luminiferous aether. This experiment is the basis for modern optical interferometry and the method is used by @LIGO to detect gravitational waves. (5/n)

3172 17

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell published "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field." He showed that electromagnetic waves propagate with a velocity close to the known speed of light, and concluded that light must be an EM wave. (6/n)

1162 16

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Maxwell and everyone else assumed that electromagnetic waves, like all waves known at the time, needed a medium. They called it the "luminiferous aether." Maxwell's equations would only be valid in the aether's rest frame. But no one could devise an experiment that directly sampled the aether. (7/n)

1161 16