it is at rest at any specified point of its orbit, or, in the probable event of its not being at rest, what its absolute velocity may be. There is no more reason for thinking the sun, than the earth, to be at rest. Newton wrote as follows:
" It is possible that in the remote regions of the fixed stars, or perhaps far beyond them, there may be some body absolutely at rest, but impossible to know, from the positions of bodies to one another in our regions, whether any of these do keep the same posi- tion to that remote body. It follows that absolute rest cannot be determined from the position of bodies in our regions."
The above quotations are all from the first book of the Principia Malhematica. Previous to them all Newton writes: " I have no regard in this place to a medium, if any such there is, that freely pervades the interstices between the parts of bodies." The two centuries which elapsed after the publication of the Principia witnessed a steady growth of the belief in the reality of such an all-pervading medium. It was called the aether, and by the end of these two centuries (1887) it was almost universally believed that light and all electromagnetic phenomena were evidence of actions taking place in this aether. Light from the most distant stars was supposed to be transmitted to us in the form of wave motions in the aether, and we could see,the stars only because the sea of aether between us and these stars was unbroken. It had been proved that if this sea of aether existed it must be at rest, for the alternative hypothesis that the aether was dragged about by ponderable bodies in their motions had been shown to be incompatible with the observed phenomenon of astronomical aberration and other facts of nature (see 1.292). On this view it was no longer neces- sary to go to Newton's " remote regions of the fixed stars, or perhaps far beyond them," to find absolute rest. A standard of absolute rest was provided by the aether which filled our laboratories and pervaded all bodies. Owing to our motion it would appear to be rushing past us, although without encounter- ing any hindrance " like the wind through a grove of trees," to borrow the simile of Thomas Young. The determination of the absolute velocity of the earth was reduced to the problem of measuring the velocity of an aether current flowing past us and through us.
In this same year (1887) the first experimental determination of this velocity was attempted by the Chicago physicist A. A. Michelson. The velocity of light was known to be, in round numbers, 300,000 km. a second, a velocity which was believed to represent the rate of progress of wave motion through the aether. If the earth were moving through the aether with a velocity of 1,000 km. a second, the velocity of light relative to a terrestrial observer ought to be only 299,000 km. a second when the light was sent in exactly the direction of the earth's motion through the aether, but would be 301,000 km. a second if the light was sent in the opposite direction. In more general terms, if the earth were moving through the aether, the velocity of light, as measured by a terrestrial observer, would depend on the direction of the light, and the extent of this dependence would give a measure of the earth's velocity. The velocity of light along a single straight course does not permit of direct experimental determination, but the same property of depend- ence on direction ought to be true, although to a less extent, of the average to-and-fro velocity of a beam of light sent along any path and then reflected back along the same path.
It was through this property that Michelson attempted to measure the earth's velocity through the aether.
The apparatus was simple in principle. A circular table ABCD was arranged so as to be capable of slow rotation about its centre O. Light sent along CO was divided up at O into two beams which were made to travel along perpendicular radii OA, OB. The arms OA, OB were made as equal as possible and mirrors were placed at A and B to reflect the beams of light back to O. An extremely sensi- tive optical method made it possible to detect even a very slight difference in the times of the total paths of the two beams from O back to O. There would in any case be a difference owing to the necessarily imperfect equalization of the lengths of the arms OA, OB, but if the earth is moving through the aether in some direction OP, and if the table is made to rotate slowly about O, then this difference ought itself to vary on account of the earth's motion through the aether. Michelson, and afterwards Michelson and Money in collaboration, attempted to estimate the amount of this variation.
No variation whatsoever could be detected, although their final apparatus was so sensitive that the variation produced by a velocity through the aether of even I km. a second ought to have shown itself quite clearly.
Thus to the question " What is our velocity through the aether ? " Nature appeared to give the answer " None." It was never suggested that this answer should be accepted as final; it would have brought us back to a geocentric universe. Clearly either the question had been wrongly framed or the answer wrongly interpreted. It was pointed out in 1893 by Fitzgerald, and again, independently, in 1895, by Lorentz, that the nidi result of the Michelson-Morley experiment could be explained if it could be supposed that motion through the aether altered the linear dimensions of bodies.
FIG. i.
FIG. 2.
To be explicit, it was found that the experiment would invariably and of necessity give a null result if it was supposed that every body moving through the aether with a velocity was contracted
in the direction of its motion in the ratio
u 2 , . - , f I , C being .the c
velocity of light. The supposition that such a contraction occurred was not only permissible it was almost demanded by electrical theory. For Lorentz had already shown that if matter were a purely electrical structure, the constituent parts would of necessity read- just their relative positions when set in motion through the aether and the final position of equilibrium would be one showing precisely the contraction just mentioned.
On this view, there was no prima-facie necessity to abandon the attempt to measure the earth's velocity through the aether. The answer to the problem had merely been pushed one stage farther back, and it now became necessary only to measure the shrinkage of matter produced by motion. It was obvious from the first that no direct material measurement could disclose the amount of this shrinkage, since any measuring rod would shrink in exactly the same ratio as the length to be measured; but optical and electrical methods appeared to be available. Experi- ments to this end were devised and performed by Rayleigh, Brace, Trouton and Noble, Trouton and Rankine and others. In every case a null result was obtained. It appeared then that if the earth moved through the aether this motion was concealed by a universal shrinkage of matter, and this shrinkage was in turn concealed by some other agency or agencies whose wit, so far, appeared to be greater than that of man.
At this time the word " conspiracy " found its way into the technical language of science. There was supposed to be a conspiracy on the part of the various agencies of nature to prevent man from measuring his velocity of motion in space. If this motion produced a direct effect x on any phenomenon, the other agencies of nature seemed to be in league to produce a countervailing effect x. A long train of experiments had not revealed, as was intended, our velocity through the aether; they had merely created a conviction that it was beyond the power of man to measure this velocity. The conspiracy, if such there was, appeared to have been perfectly organized.
A perfectly organized conspiracy of this kind differs only in name from a law of nature. To the inventor who tries to devise a perpetual-motion machine it may well appear that the forces of nature have joined in a conspiracy to prevent his machine from working, but wider knowledge shows that he is in conflict not with a conspiracy, but with a law of nature the conservation of energy. In 1905 Einstein, crystallizing an idea which must
