Fizeau's "aether-drag" experiment in the undergraduate laboratory - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue American Journal of Physics Année : 2012

Fizeau's "aether-drag" experiment in the undergraduate laboratory

Résumé

We describe a simple realization of Fizeau's "aether-drag" experiment. Using an inexpensive setup, we measure the phase shift induced by moving water in a laser interferometer and find good agreement with the relativistic prediction or, in the terms of 19th century physics, with Fresnel's partial-drag theory. This appealing experiment, particularly suited for an undergraduate laboratory project, not only allows a quantitative measurement of a relativistic effect on a macroscopic system but also constitutes a practical application of important concepts of optics, data acquisition and processing, and fluid mechanics.

Dates et versions

hal-00726346 , version 1 (29-08-2012)

Identifiants

Citer

Thierry Lahaye, Pierre Labastie, Renaud Mathevet. Fizeau's "aether-drag" experiment in the undergraduate laboratory. American Journal of Physics, 2012, 80, pp.497-505. ⟨10.1119/1.3690117⟩. ⟨hal-00726346⟩
160 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

More