H. P. Lovecraft on the existence of aether
Jim Shaffer, Jr. ( (no email) )
Thu, 1 Apr 1999 23:30:38 -0500
"Recent lectures of interest have been on Plato's Republick, modern art,
Gilbert Stuart, Rhode-Island silversmiths, archaick Greek art, Philosophy and
Poetry, early classical sculpture, Mayan ruins, and the Michelson-Morley
experiment. The last-named, deliver'd at the college Monday night, was by Prof.
Dayton C. Miller, former colleague of Morley and present continuer of the
experiment. He furnish'd startlingly convincing proof that the real results of
the experiment do NOT shew that total absence of effect of the observer's motion
on the speed of light which forms the underlying assumption of the Einstein
theory. Instead, there is merely a lack of the full difference which the
observer's motion ought (according to the old theory of time and space) to make.
Prof. Miller very pertinently asks whether Einstein -- and Eddington and Jeans
and all the rest -- ought to assume (and base a whole theory of cosmick entity
on that assumption) that the Michelson-Morley experiment always gives zero
(reckoning any difference from that as error), when in truth it always gives a
fairly constant difference from zero; in the direction that the earth's motion
(in orbit, and in cosmick space with the sun) wou'd indicate (according to the
old pre-Einstein concept), tho' not of the AMOUNT demanded by that motion (in
the absence of unknown complicating factors). Miller himself offers no dogmatic
solution, but suggests that a drift in the luminiferous aether (assuming,
contrary to Einstein, that such exists) in the direction of the earth's motion
would account -- on the basis of the old pre-Einstein universe of
non-relativity -- for the fact that the observer's change of place in space
gives some of the effect demanded by the old concept, but not all of the
required amount. If Miller is right, the whole fabrick of relativity collapses,
and we have once more the absolute dimensions and real time which we had before
1905. Just how his experiments -- of incredible care, elaborateness, frequency,
and repetition under every conceivable change of conditions -- are regarded by
the bulk of recent physicists and mathematicians, I do not know -- but his
explanation of them seemed to indicate a more serious challenge to Einstein than
any previously offer'd by other non-relativists. I shall be eager to learn what
the disciples of relativity have to say of him and his work. Prof. Miller's
lecture was illustrated, and was mark'd by a singular and felicitous clearness
of expression. Of the laymen who attended it, most departed with a better idea
of the famous experiment than they ever had before."
Letter to James F. Morton, 9 May 1936. From
http://www.hplovecraft.com/life/interest/astrnmy.htm
--home page: http://woodstock.csrlink.net/~jshaffer