Talk:Trouton–Rankine experiment

message: According to Lorentz ether theory, the length contraction is not frame dependent. According to Lorentz ether theory the contraction occurs anyway, but it's observability is frame dependent; you are prevented from observing it when you are co-moving. According to special relativity the length contraction itself is frame dependent; there is no length contraction of atoms with respect to a co-moving reference frame. The length contraction concept of ether theories is vastly different from the length contraction concept of special relativity, and I am not surprised that Trouton and Rankine hoped to obtain experimental evidence.
: Cleon, I can't make sense of that, sorry. Likely this is due to a lack of definitions. There is no operational difference between SRT with one explanation and SRT with another explanation. However, Firzgerald had apparently another theory, even after 1905/1906. Harald88 03:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This serves to illustrate my point: you just described the behaviour according to SRT - but no mecahnical tensions: we are dealing with equilibria, as you yourself explained above. Harald88 03:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Nonsense - it only disproves the set of particular assumptions that the test was set out to test for. but I already explained that experiments usually test an accumulation of hypotheses, and this is a good example. Nothing more to add. Harald88 19:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vastly different concepts of length contraction 

message: In the article it is stated:<BR>
:The famous Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 had plunged the physics world in general and the then existing "aether" theory in particular into a deep crisis.
That statement is incorrect. At the time, there was no perception in the physics community that a crisis was on. There was general confidence that the anomalies would be resolved. When Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Price for Physics, the Nobel committee did not mention Einstein's work in relativistic physics. The Nobel prize committee cited other work, presumably the committee felt that the status of  relativity theory was still unclear.
The idea of the Michelson-Morley experiment plunging the physics world in a crisis just a fairy-tale.
There was no perception of a crisis, but over the years the scientific community's preference did shift to relativistic physics, because it was recognized that relativistic physics is superior. --Cleonis | Talk 20:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it is exaggerated; nevertheless according to Poincare, physics was in a crisis but I don't remember what words he used exactly. For the moment I'll just remove "deep". Harald88 00:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The myth of the crisis 

message: From sci.physics.relativity (posting not by me):
:"> And now for the literature search results.  Following the paper trail from Chase's 1927 paper "The Trouton-Noble Ether Drift Experiment", he references his own paper from 1926 "A repetition of the Trouton-Noble Ether Drift Experiment", which then references:
:> "Fitzgerald & Loretz, Scientific papers, p. 556"
:>Any idea where that could be found?  His experimental setup seems somewhat different from the Trouton and Rankine experiment, as he measures a torque and not a resistance..
:> I was also able to download the 1908 paper from the JSTOR.ORG archive  (Proc. Roy. Soc. 80A, 420-435, 1908)
:> From that paper, page 421:
:> "Now suppose that the wire AR is turned tlirough a right angle, so that its length is perpendicular to the velocity v. According to the Fitzgerald-Lorentz shrinkage hypothesis, the length of the wire will be thus increased by a srnall amount [\delta l], such that [\delta l /l = 1/2 (v/V)^2] , where V is the velocity of light, and all powers of v/V higher than the second have been neglected, v being supposed very small compared with V."
:> Trouton and Rankine fail to say here that this Lorentz-Fitzgerald change of length occurs in the ether frame and not in the laboratory frame!  Why should the resistance of a wire as measured in the laboratory depend on the length of the wire as measured in some other frame of reference?
:> Also interesting to note is that Trouton & Rankine's conclusion is nowhere near the same as the statements attributed them on the wikipedia website, rather (p.434):
:> "...  the specific resistance of a material is dependent upon the direction of flow of the current, being greater to a current flowing parallel to the velocity of the material through space than to a current in a perpendicular direction.  The magnitude of this change of specific resistance is shown by the experiments to be certainly within 2 per cent. of being sufficient to compensate the change of length.
:>   Note.- In view of the very general acceptance of the Fitzgerald-Lorentz shrinkage theory, the negative results of these experiments will probably be attributed to a dependence of specific resistance on direction of current flow.  In this connection it is worthy of note that certain independent considerations point to the same conclusion..."
:> Conclusion: The wikipedia Trouton-Rankine page misrepresents the authors of that paper, as well as failing to point out the shortcomings of the analysis in the paper.  "
Harald88 23:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who are you talking to? The writer of the above message is a certain "Shevek", but I don't know if he is watching. If you want, you can email him; apparently you already discussed with him. I included this because it contains citations of he paper as well as a link to it (and why didn't you include this information yourself?). However, I have no access to that link; If there are errors in those quotations, please tell. Harald88 12:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  corrections to make 

message: This doesn't make sense, as it contradicts itself:
Lorentz ether theory and in Special Relativity, the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction is not measurable in a co-moving frame. Based on the Lorentz 1904 version of the Lorentz ether theory the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction should have been measurable in a co-moving frame.
Can someone who knows the material please correct it?
Długosz 23-Aug-2007  —The preceding  signed but undated. 
I've corrected the passage. It was meant that based on an older version of Lorentz ether theory (before 1905), it was thought that the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction should have been measurable in a co-moving frame. --D.H 09:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Who thought so? Lorentz? Reference please! Others such as Langevin and Poincare concluded the contrary. Harald88 21:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, I think we're both not phrasing this well. Based on Lorentz 1904, Langevin and Poincare concluded in 1905 that absolute motion is not measurable in any way. Whatever Trouton thought should be accredited to him. However, relativistic effects are measurable, at least in principle - physics is first of all about measurables. I'll check the text again and modify if needed. Harald88 09:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it or isn't it? 

message: I moved the following phrase about "Lorentz Ether Theory" here:
"which was completed by Lorentz and Poincaré after 1905".
No theory of such name was known at the time and Lorentz's theory was corrected and completed by Poincaré in 1905. It is questionable that after the emergence of what became known as "relativity" since 1905, anything "else" (but in fact the same) was "completed". At the very least, a quality reference should be stated that expressed that opinion. Moreover, it doesn't seem relevant here. Harald88 21:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. --D.H 08:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  suspect phrase 

message: I deleted the references to Chase and Tomaschek, and moved them to the article on Trouton–Noble experiment, since the authors themselves call their experiments a variation of the Trouton-Noble experiment to measure some sort of torque, while the Trouton-Rankine paper or length contraction are not mentioned at all. --D.H (talk) 17:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chase, Tomaschek