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Independent Testability: The Michelson-Morley and Kennedy-Thorndike Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Ronald Laymon
Ronald Laymon*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Abstract

Grünbaum has argued that the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction hypothesis is not ad hoc since the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment can be used to provide a test that is significantly different from that provided by the Michelson-Morley experiment. In the first part of the paper, I show that the differences claimed by Grünbaum to hold between these two experiments are not sufficient for establishing independent testability. A dilemma is developed: either the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment, because of experimental realities, cannot test the uncontracted Fresnel aether theory, or if experimental difficulties are ignored, the Kennedy-Thorndike experiment degenerates into a version of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The second part of the paper is a feasibility study of the prospects for defining experimental types according to aims of measurement and determination. This approach is applied to the contraction hypothesis, where it is suggested that the usual analysis of independent testability be modified.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 1 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1980

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Footnotes

†

I would like to express thanks and much gratitude to the following for their many helpful comments and suggestions: Roger Stuewer, Carl Nielson, Philip Quinn, Jarrett Leplin, and the anonymous referees.

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