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Einstein's debt to M-M (was Doppler question)



At 22:52 3/19/98 -0500, you wrote:
Shankland of Case/Cleveland interviewed Einstein and asked this question.
As I recall, AE said he probably had heard of the MM experiment, but
couldn't be sure, although he had earlier said (at a meeting in Japan) he
had not heard of it. Shankland subsequently wrote a feature article in
either Physics Today or Scientific American on AE, discussing also this
issue. Sorry to be so vague, but perhaps this will jog another's memory
of the Shankland (now deceased) article.


Bob Sciamanda

Though I shall quote Shankland directly reporting Einstein,
people who are convinced of their position will hardly be moved
by it.

"When I asked him how he had learned of the M-M experiment,
he told me had become aware of it through the writings of
H.A.Lorentz, but only after 1905 had it come to his attention.

'Otherwise', he said,'I would have mentioned it in my paper'.
He continued to say that the experimental results which had
influenced him most were the observations of stellar aberration
and Fizeau's measurements on the speed of light in moving water.
'They were enough,' he said."
(Feb 4, 1950)

However, on Oct 24, 1952, when Shankland visited Princeton
again, E was not so sure. "I am not sure when I first heard of
the M~ experiment"

Two years later still, for Polyani's "The Art Of Knowing", E
approved this:
"The M-M experiment had a negligible effect on the discovery
of relativity"

(Quotes from R W Clark, "Einstein, the Life and Times"
who apparently felt that Einstein knew of M-M at 1905 but that
Lorentz, Fizeau and Maxwell were much more decisive factors...)