Many-Minds Explanation of Michelson-Morley Null Result

Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity came out from a necessity to explain the null result of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment designed to detect the motion of the Earth through a luminiferous aether as a space-filling medium carrying electromagnetic waves.

In the experiment, light was reflected along the two perpendicular arms of an interferometer and it was expected that a phase or fringe shift would occur if there was an aether medium through which the Earth was plowing on its lonely journey around the Sun. But no fringe shift was detected as an observation of a negation to the following statement:

• There is a unique aether medium carrying electromagnetics waves.

Logic says that the negation takes the form

• (i) there is no aether whatsoever or (ii) there are more than one different aethers.

Einstein, who was not trained in logic, concluded that the negation was (i), and in the absence of any medium he was led into his special theory with space and time being strangely distorted by uniform motion. Einstein thus explained the null result by simply eliminating any form of aether: If there was no aether, no experiment seeking to detect motion through the aether could be meaningful. Einstein dismissed the Michelson-Morley experiment by simply denying it, and thus did not explain the null result.

In Many-Minds Relativity I explore instead (ii), which offers the following explanation of the Michelson-Morley null result:

Each arm of the interferometer has an aether carrying electromagnetic waves described by Maxwell's equations in a coordinate system tied to the arm. Since there are two arms, there are two coordinate systems and thus two aethers. Maxwell's equations take the same form in both systems, and because there is no way to distinguish one coordinate system from the other, there will be no fringe shift.

An aether in many-minds relativity can be seen as a standard Euclidean coordinate system in which electromagnetic waves propagate according to Maxwell's equations. An observer is assumed to be tied to rest in his coordinate system. Two observers moving with respect to each other thus will use different coordinate systems and thus different aethers. Many-minds relativity explores to what degree different observers moving with respect to each other, can agree in their observations.

Note that since an aether is a non-material medium, like a coordinate system, there is no inherent contradiction in the idea of many aethers, or many minds with different aethers. There is no contradiction in two observers using two different coordinate systems. There is only a contradiction of two different full owners of the same material house.

The punchline is that Einstein did not explain the Michelson-Morley null result, just made it devoid of meaning, while many-minds relativity offers an explanation. What do you think is most constructive, to claim something is meaningless or to carefully explain it in scientific rational terms?

PS The idea of many aethers was suggested by Ebenezer Cunningham, but did not survive under Einstein's simplistic no-aether dogmatism. Maybe it is now time for a revival...in fact the late Einstein reintroduced the aether eliminated by the young one.

This post was stimulated by reading Questioning Einstein, Is Relativity Necessary? by Tom Bethell. No relativity is neither necessary nor sufficient...

There is a connection to my new derivation of Planck's radiation law describing the radiative heat exchange between two (black) bodies carried by electromagnetic waves described by Maxwell's equations in a coordinate system fixed to the bodies, assuming the bodies are moving with the same velocity.