The Existence of the Luminiferous Ether Demonstrated by Means of the Effect of a Relative Ether Wind in an Uniformly Rotating Interferometer

Abstract

I let a horizontal platform rotate uniformly, at one or two revolutions per second, around a vertical axis; on the platform I have firmly fixed the pieces of an interferometer equal to that I used in my previous experiments, described in 1910 (Comptes rendus,150, 1676). The two interfering beams, which are reflected by four mirrors placed on the rim of the rotating platform, are superimposed after the propagation in opposite directions along the same circular horizontal circuit which encloses an area S. The rotating system contains also the light source, a little electric lamp, the receiver, a fine grain photographic plate which records the interference fringe. On the photographs d and s, obtained respectively by a dextrorsum and a sinistrorsum rotation with the same frequency, the centre of the central fringe has different positions. I measure this displacement with respect to the centre of interference.

Translated from Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences,157, 708 (1913), Courtesy of Elsevier-France.