Talk:Fringe shift

Wrong explanation of the Michelson–Morley experiment

In the MMX it was not expected that the arm length would be altered by the apparent aether wind; rather, that this wind – i.e. a wave medium moving relative to the observer – would change the observed speed of light, causing the phase shift, thus the fringe shift.

The original author’s contention that the arm length might be modified by motion through the luminiferous aether is a (common) misconception, either motivated by the length contraction postulated in Lorentz ether theory (posited in order to explain the null result of the MMX) or unrelated general-relativistic gravitational wave theory (GW observatories like LIGO also use a Michelson interferometer), both of which were posited later. I have corrected this (historian’s fallacy) and clarified the explanation.

--PointedEars (talk) 12:27, 21 May 2017 (UTC)