Conclusion
Aether doesn’t exist. Differences in theoretical measurements fail to account for Length Contraction Also explained by Special Relativity
The Experiment
An experiment to measure the velocity of the Earth relative to “aether”, the apparent medium of Light through space, hypothesized at the time. Aether does not exist, and the experiment proved this. Light does not in fact require a medium.
The experiment used Michelson Interferometer
If light required a medium then its velocity would depend on the velocity of the aether medium. The total velocity would be given be the vector sum of the light’s velocity and the medium vector.
Let
As they Theorized
The Delays of the parallel and perpindicular progations would be as follows
Thus, the fringe Phase Delay would be
They would then rotate the device and remeasure which would give
Experimental Results
The interference fringes showed no change as the interferometer was rotated, repeatedly reproducing null results over a long period of time.
Here is a plot of the scaled down theoretical values vs the experimental values
