1 Classical Ether Theory Explains the Fizeau Experiment

Abstract: Regardless of the fact that A. Michelson and E. Morley explained the Fizeau Experiment [1, 2] in a very simple classical way [3], this experiment is sometimes used to demonstrate the validity of special theory of relativity[4]. Because some other experiments [5, 6] show that Doppler effect, which is generated within a moving Medium, influences the average speed of light, it could be rather interpreted as an argument against the special theory of relativity. An attempt to measure the speed of light in moving water was accomplished in 1851 by H. Fizeau [1, 2], whereby it turned out that the addition of the speeds does not correspond to the usual composition of vector values. It was shown however that the measurements confirm the ether drag theory, whereby the ether is to be only partly carried. Since the speed of light is in a medium that is also frequency dependent, Fresnel’s theory cannot completely be in this case free of errors. Later it was shown that the results of Fizeau experiment can be derived by use of the relativistic addition of the speeds, if it is limited to small speeds of the medium (M. Laue) [4], with the problem that relativistic addition of speeds is neither mathematically nor physically an addition but only a rule for the computation of a transcendental function of the sum of two numerical values. Thus the only possible physical explanation remains still the theory of the gravitationally carrying ether [7, 8, 9]