Light Speed and Aether
Curtis E. Renshaw
The experiments of Fizeau, et al., in the years 1851-1925 were all designed to test for the motion of the Earth through the presumed aether, or to test for the extent to which the aether was constrained and carried in a moving, material medium. The results of these experiments defined the Fresnel coefficient of aether drag and the Lorentz Transformations, each formulated to explain the nature of the aether as evidenced by the data obtained. Building on these results (and much original thought), Einstein developed the Special Theory of Relativity, keeping many of the results in form, but abandoning the aether. Analyzing the results of these experiments without the assumption of an aether eliminates the Fresnel aether drag coefficient, the Lorentz Transformation, length contraction and time dilation, and, with this, the basis for Special Relativity. The correct form and value for the solutions are then derived utilizing Galilean Transformations.
