Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Fizeau experiment
The Fizeau experiment was carried out by Hippolyte Fizeau in 1851 to measure the relative speeds of light in moving water. Fizeau used a special interferometer arrangement to measure the effect of movement of a medium upon the speed of light.
According to the theories prevailing at the time, light traveling through a moving medium would be dragged along by the medium, so that the measured speed of the light would be a simple sum of its speed through the medium plus the speed of the medium. Fizeau indeed detected a dragging effect, but the magnitude of the effect that he observed was far lower than expected. When he repeated the experiment with air in place of water he observed no effect. His results seemingly supported the partial aether-drag hypothesis of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, a situation that was disconcerting to most physicists. Over half a century passed before a satisfactory explanation of Fizeau's unexpected measurement was developed with the advent of Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. Einstein later pointed out the importance of the experiment for special relativity, in which it corresponds to the relativistic velocity-addition formula when restricted to small velocities.
Although it is referred to as the Fizeau experiment, Fizeau was an active experimenter who carried out a wide variety of different experiments involving measuring the speed of light in various situations.
As scientists in the 1700's worked on a theory of light and of electromagnetism, luminiferous aether, a medium that would support waves, was the focus of many experiments. Two critical issues were the relation of aether to motion and its relation to matter. For example, astronomical aberration, the apparent motion of stars observed at different times of year, was proposed to be related to starlight propagated through an aether. In 1846 Fresnel proposed that the portion of aether that will move with an object relates to the object's index of refraction of light, which was taken to be the ratio of the speed of light in the material to the speed of light in interstellar space. Having recently measured the speed of light in air and water, Fizeau set out to measure the speed of light in moving water.
A highly simplified representation of Fizeau's 1851 experiment is presented in Fig. 2. Incoming light is split into two beams by a beam splitter (BS) and passed through two columns of water flowing in opposite directions. The two beams are then recombined to form an interference pattern that can be interpreted by an observer.
The simplified arrangement illustrated in Fig. 2 would have required the use of monochromatic light, which would have enabled only dim fringes. Because of white light's short coherence length, use of white light would have required matching up the optical paths to an impractical degree of precision, and the apparatus would have been extremely sensitive to vibration, motion shifts, and temperature effects.
Fizeau's actual apparatus, illustrated in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, was set up as a common-path interferometer. This guaranteed that the opposite beams would pass through equivalent paths, so that fringes readily formed even when using the sun as a light source.
The double transit of the light was for the purpose of augmenting the distance traversed in the medium in motion, and further to compensate entirely any accidental difference of temperature or pressure between the two tubes, from which might result a displacement of the fringes, which would be mingled with the displacement which the motion alone would have produced; and thus have rendered the observation of it uncertain.
Hub AI
Fizeau experiment AI simulator
(@Fizeau experiment_simulator)
Fizeau experiment
The Fizeau experiment was carried out by Hippolyte Fizeau in 1851 to measure the relative speeds of light in moving water. Fizeau used a special interferometer arrangement to measure the effect of movement of a medium upon the speed of light.
According to the theories prevailing at the time, light traveling through a moving medium would be dragged along by the medium, so that the measured speed of the light would be a simple sum of its speed through the medium plus the speed of the medium. Fizeau indeed detected a dragging effect, but the magnitude of the effect that he observed was far lower than expected. When he repeated the experiment with air in place of water he observed no effect. His results seemingly supported the partial aether-drag hypothesis of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, a situation that was disconcerting to most physicists. Over half a century passed before a satisfactory explanation of Fizeau's unexpected measurement was developed with the advent of Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. Einstein later pointed out the importance of the experiment for special relativity, in which it corresponds to the relativistic velocity-addition formula when restricted to small velocities.
Although it is referred to as the Fizeau experiment, Fizeau was an active experimenter who carried out a wide variety of different experiments involving measuring the speed of light in various situations.
As scientists in the 1700's worked on a theory of light and of electromagnetism, luminiferous aether, a medium that would support waves, was the focus of many experiments. Two critical issues were the relation of aether to motion and its relation to matter. For example, astronomical aberration, the apparent motion of stars observed at different times of year, was proposed to be related to starlight propagated through an aether. In 1846 Fresnel proposed that the portion of aether that will move with an object relates to the object's index of refraction of light, which was taken to be the ratio of the speed of light in the material to the speed of light in interstellar space. Having recently measured the speed of light in air and water, Fizeau set out to measure the speed of light in moving water.
A highly simplified representation of Fizeau's 1851 experiment is presented in Fig. 2. Incoming light is split into two beams by a beam splitter (BS) and passed through two columns of water flowing in opposite directions. The two beams are then recombined to form an interference pattern that can be interpreted by an observer.
The simplified arrangement illustrated in Fig. 2 would have required the use of monochromatic light, which would have enabled only dim fringes. Because of white light's short coherence length, use of white light would have required matching up the optical paths to an impractical degree of precision, and the apparatus would have been extremely sensitive to vibration, motion shifts, and temperature effects.
Fizeau's actual apparatus, illustrated in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, was set up as a common-path interferometer. This guaranteed that the opposite beams would pass through equivalent paths, so that fringes readily formed even when using the sun as a light source.
The double transit of the light was for the purpose of augmenting the distance traversed in the medium in motion, and further to compensate entirely any accidental difference of temperature or pressure between the two tubes, from which might result a displacement of the fringes, which would be mingled with the displacement which the motion alone would have produced; and thus have rendered the observation of it uncertain.