(Jewish Daily Bulletin)
Prof. Albert A. Michelson’s discovery that light travels 186,284 miles a second, or thirty-six miles a second less than hitherto supposed, will be accepted by the astronomical as well as by the general scientific world, despite experiments that are said to contradict both Michelson’s work and the Einstein theory.
The report at the convention here of the National Academy of Science, of which Prof. Michelson is president, that Prof. Dayton C. Miller, of the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, had obtained results to contradict Michelson’s extensive researches, was considered by at least one authority to be without foundation.
Dr. John A. Miller, professor of astronomy at Swarthmore College, whose paper summarizing the results of ten years of observation of solar eclipses was one of the high lights of the convention, declared he did not think Prof. Dayton’s experiments would show Prof. Michelson to be in error.
“As far as I know,” said Dr. Miller, “Prof. Dayton’s experiments are such as to have little bearing on the results understand it, Prof. Dayton is not experimenting with the velocity of light.”
Dr. Miller explained that although Prof. Michelson’s discovery revises the velocity rate of light by only 36 miles a second, it nevertheless is of great importance, in as such as it brings nearer to absolute certainty the knowledge about one of the few remaining constants in the world of science. (A constant, as its name implies, is an unchanging natural phenomenon.)
“The scientific world,” said Dr. Miller, “will accept Prof. Michelson’s figures, I am sure. I probably will govern my own experiments by them.”
Dr. Miller’s experiments also are based somewhat on Prof. Michelson’s achievements. Dr. Miller’s ten years work in America and also in other parts of the world, he informed the Academy of Science, showed movements in the corona of the sun as well as the deflection of light announced by Einstein, lending support to the latter’s famous theory.
Prof. Michelson himself said today his discovery will have no bearing on the Einstein theory because of the comparatively small deviation in his figure and the hitherto accepted figure of the speed of light, but, he added, it must deeply affect future astronomical research.
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