THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT, THE ETHER DRAG.

MICHELSON, ALBERT A. & EDWARD W. MORLEY

On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether.

London, Taylor and Francis, 1887.

8vo. In recent full blue cloth. In: "The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science" Fifth Series, Vol. 24. VIII,524 pp., textillustr. and 9 plates. (Entire volume offered). Michelson & Morley's paper: pp. 449-463, textillustr. (depicting experimental apparatus etc.). Title-page with light soiling and lower 2 cm loose and traces from previous binding in inner maring. Otherwise a good copy.

First European publication of this classic paper which announced one of the most celebrated experiments in the history of physics and eventually led Einstein to his Relativity Theory (see PMM 378,410,408). The paper appeared first in the "American Journal of Science" just one month before in November, not in August as stated in PMM. The offered paper appeared in the December issue 1887 and in a slightly modified form.
Michelson was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, in 1907, for the measurement of the speed of light through the design and application of precise optical instruments such as the interferometer, which was used in this experiment.

"Michelson, trained at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Morley, minister turned chemist, began a series of experiments to determine the relation of ether drift and the velocity of light, effects of extremely minute values. They used a slightly silvered glass set angular to a ray of sunlight so that a part ofthe ray was transmitted, a part reflected out and again returned, thereby providing two paths, one perpendicular to the other. If drift existed, the superimposed rays would produce interference. None was observed, showing that the earth's motion did not affect the light's speed. The negative result held revolutionary implications which led directly thru Lorentz and Einstein to the acceptance of new standards of reference of time and space from geometry and cosmometry."(Dibner).

Dibner No 161 (listing the offered paper from Philosophical Magazine). - Norman 1505.- Magee "A Source Book in Physics", pp. 369 ff. (the offered paper).

The volume contains another paper by Michelson and Morley "On a method of Making the Wave-lenght of Sodium Light the actual and practical Standard of Lenght", pp. 463-466.

Order-nr.: 60060