MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract: This Section is designed to explain the history behind special relativity, and to convince a student reader that the Liminiferous Aether does not exist. The history is given on the first page as the motivation for Michelson and Morley to design their experiment, this section also defines the Aether. Next, the writer convinces the reader that the Aether does not exist by carefully walking them through the workings of Michelson interferometer as described in (Pfeffer 2012, and Morin 2017) and then the historical experiment as described in (Morley, Michelson 1887). The workings of a basic interferometer are first described and then the historical experimental set up Michelson used is described fully. Next, equations describing the theoretically expected result at that time are derived mathematically by assuming that the Aether exists, and that the earth is moving in relation to it. Then, expected results are generated by plugging in facts from the experimental set up described above. Finally, the results of the experiment are compared with the theoretically predicted results, and the conclusion is drawn that the Aether must not exist, because the detected shift in the apparatus is much smaller than the shift predicted by the theories at that time predicted. This result leads to the creation of special relativity, and the end of the section.

Reader’s Profile: I imagine a professor, or a textbook savvy student critiquing the originality, and effectiveness of my work having read several other texts on the subject.

Reader Response: While the mathematical description of classical, non-relativistic light propagation is slightly enlightening, it would be much more useful to use this section in a part of the text book that is not an introduction, but instead an intermediate section of the chapter on special relativity. Doing this, you could show the reader the difference between what was expected at the time, and what happened using our modern language of special relativity to describe the Null result found in the Michelson Morley experiment. This would bring new understanding to a reader that is likely already familiar with how interferometers work, and would be a great excuse to use Lorentz transformations in the X and Y directions as opposed to using them only X directions as is typically done in introductory texts.

W, will you be using section heads? I would do that for me and for your prof. Very helpful to the student reader, as they try to work their way through complexity AND when they review to deepen their understand and to prep for exams.