Queer Machine Checks Up on Ether Drift (Dec, 1932)
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1932
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Queer Machine Checks Up on Ether Drift
SCIENTISTS at Jena, Germany, have constructed one of the most amazing and odd-appearing measuring devices on record. It is an apparatus to measure the drift of the ether, that impalpable substance which, according to one school of thought, fills the space in which the universe swims. Theoretically the motion of the earth, passing through this ether, should set up a drift comparable to the breeze generated by the motion of an automobile through the air.
To determine if such a drift actually does exist, the elaborate optical apparatus shown on this page was built by German scientists It consists of four arms on a perpendicular axis, containing a series of mirrors, lenses, and reflecting plates. A ray of light enters at the top of the device and is bounced back and forth thousands of times, finally emerging at the bottom, where its passing leaves a record on a photographic plate.A study of the photographs, one of which is reproduced above, leads scientists to the conclusion that ether drift, if it exists at all, must be less than 1 1/2 miles per second, instead of the 10 mile per second figure arrived at by some earlier investigators. Complicated mathematics involving the bending of light rays entered into the scientific conclusions.
All previous experiments of this nature have depended on the human eye for their conclusions.
Isn’t this just another version of the Michelson-Morley experiment? If so, what were they doing building these things 40 years later?
Comment by William — December 24, 2007 @ 7:49 am
It has something to do with Aryan vs. Jewish science — because Einstein was Jewish, Nazis did not accept the theory of relativity.
Comment by MB — December 24, 2007 @ 8:32 am
I think there are two reasons. First, this experiment had longer arms than the MM one. Second this one used a photographic detector rather than relying on a person to to judge it.
Comment by Charlie — December 24, 2007 @ 8:47 am
The Nazis didn’t come to power until Jan 1933, so it seems unlikely that this had much to do with their racial views.
Comment by Mitch — December 24, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Um, no. There is nothing obviously queer about this machine. If you do an experiment and it has a result or the opposite result, it is a legitimate experiment. My parents had an old physics textbook lying around the house from the early 30s that mentioned the “ether.” We know there is no ether now, so what is the big deal? they were looking for it then and didn’t find evidence for it. The Michelson/Morely experiment had been done decades earlier, but this is a more subtle machine. If you look for something and don’t find it your experiment has succeeded.
Comment by charles kiddell — December 24, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
In the context of 1932 it’s queer insofar that it’s unusual or according to the Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=q&p=1 “1508, “strange, peculiar, eccentric,” from Scottish, perhaps from Low Ger. (Brunswick dialect) queer “oblique, off-center,” related to Ger. quer “oblique, perverse, odd,” from O.H.G. twerh “oblique,” from PIE base *twerk- “to turn, twist, wind” (related to thwart). The verb “to spoil, ruin” is first recorded 1812. Sense of “homosexual” first recorded 1922; the noun in this sense is 1935, from the adj.”
Comment by Firebrand38 — December 24, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Except for the photo being unstylishly monochrome, I also can’t see what makes this apparatus “loony”. From the description and its appearance, it seems to be designed to look for a tiny phase shift difference between interferometer legs oriented parallel and perpendicular to any hypothetical ether velocity. (Imagine a water-wave apparatus in a moving stream, which would in fact allow the water velocity to be inferred.) Tney may have in fact measured zero ether velocity, but that would be a useful,if unexciting (by 1932) result.
Comment by Robert Horton — December 25, 2007 @ 4:50 pm
It was probably buildt by Zeiss http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeiss
Comment by Casandro — December 26, 2007 @ 9:11 am
Could it be this experiment? The date is right…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K.....experiment
Comment by Paul Crowley — December 27, 2007 @ 6:08 am
People will probably be just as disparaging about the quest for the Higgs boson in 50 years time.
Comment by Mikey — January 2, 2008 @ 4:56 am