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In 1904 and 1905, Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré proposed a theory which explained this result as being due the effect of motion through the aether on the lengths of physical objects and the speed at which clocks ran. Due to motion through the aether objects would shrink along the direction of motion and clocks would slow down. Thus, in this theory, slowly transported clocks do not, in general, remain synchronized although this effect cannot be observed. The equations describing this theory are known as the Lorentz transformations. In 1905 these transformations became the basic equations of Einstein's special theory of relativity which proposed the same results without reference to an aether.
Although experiments cannot be done in which the one-way speed of light is measured independently of any clock synchronization scheme, it is possible to carry out experiments that measure a change in the one-way speed of light due, for example, to the motion of the source. Such experiments are the De Sitter double star experiment (1913), conclusively repeated in the x-ray spectrum by K. Brecher in 1977; or the terrestrial experiment by Alväger, et al. (1963); they show that, when measured in an inertial frame, the one-way speed of light is independent of the motion of the source within the limits of experimental accuracy.