Discovery

Mighty Ether Has Struck Out

David Arns

The outlook wasn't brilliant for Al Michelson that day,
The project he'd been working on just wouldn't go his way.
With Morley, he'd been working on this simple apparatus
To indicate the speed of Earth through ether's rigid lattice.

You see, electromagnetism moves through outer space,
And it moves, as had been proven, at an astronomic pace.
And, of course, it was "self-evident," and "every schoolboy knew"
That wave motion needs a medium for it to vibrate through.

The speed at which a wave proceeds depends on the rigidity
Of the stuff it's going through, and hence, extreme rapidity
Requires a medium strange indeed: it must be inelastic,
While still allowing matter through -- this stuff must be fantastic!

So even though no evidence had ever been presented,
The existence of this "ether" that the physics world invented
Had so taken scientists by storm that no one had even thought
The idea might be wrong, and it would shortly come to naught.

Well, Michelson and Morley, they believed it like the rest,
And set about to prove its truth, and so conceived a test
Which split a beam of light, and at right angles them aligned,
To show the interference patterns when they recombined.

So Michelson and Morley, they set up a granite slab,
And floated it on mercury they'd gotten from the lab.
They put a light source on the top, some mirrors, and a splitter;
With bated breath, they lit the lamp, their eyes were all a-glitter.

They looked upon the tiny screen for interference fringes
(This happens when beams, out of phase, upon a screen impinges).
But not a single fringe was found, at that or any angle
To which they turned their optics bench, their massive stone rectangle.

This history-making failure was truly quite successful,
Although for these two scientists, I'm sure twas very stressful.
The lesson that I hope we've learned, as connoisseurs of science,
Is that truth, and not assumptions, make with us the best alliance.

Dave Arns