CONFIRMING SPECIAL RELATIVITY IN SPITE OF HIMSELF. THE ORIGIN OF IVES–STILWELL EXPERIMENT
CONFIRMING SPECIAL RELATIVITY IN SPITE OF HIMSELF. THE ORIGIN OF IVES–STILWELL EXPERIMENT

Author(s): Roberto Lalli
Subject(s): History, History of ideas
Published by: Scientia Socialis, UAB
Keywords: Special relativity theory; Einstein; Ether; Lorentz theory; Time–dilation factor; Fringe–mainstream relationships; Michelson–Morley; Kennedy–Thorndike;
Summary/Abstract: In 1938, the American industrial physicist Herbert E. Ives performed the Ives–Stilwell experiment, named after him and his assistant G. R. Stilwell. While physics textbooks describe the experiment as a confirmation of special relativity theory (SRT), Ives regarded the result of the experiment as a proof of the Larmor–Lorentz hypothesis of the contraction of the time–pulse of an atomic clock in motion through the ether. The aim of this communication is to provide a historical analysis of Ives’s motivations to perform the experiment as well as of his theoretical presuppositions concerning the relationship between ether theories and relativity.

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